Dear Friends,
Did you know that most FlyBabies are Calendar Challenged? It took me years and thousands of dollars to finally develop a system that worked for me. With every new system I tried to get my home organized, I would buy a planner in hopes that it would somehow miraculously fix me. Guess what, it doesn’t happen!
Many calendars are developed by naturally organized people. These folks automatically know how to use one. If they came with directions, FlyBabies wouldn’t use the instructions anyway. Our system is a bit different. We teach you routines that actually tell you to open up your calendar and check your appointments. This is a foreign language for born organized people. They have never needed to be reminded to check their calendar. In fact they think something is wrong with us, because we need this kind of prompting. Let me tell you one little thing. This group is for FlyBabies and we are every bit as smart as the next person; we just have a little different way learning. The things that come naturally to BOs, we have to practice and develop into habits. It took me 30 years to learn how to use a calendar. As I started adding one habit at a time to my daily routines, the calendar became an integral part of my planning for the next day.
In order to know what clothes to put out for the next day, I had to know what was on my schedule for tomorrow. So I would pull out my calendar that I kept right beside my Control Journal and check my appointments. Then the next morning I would recheck it, after all I had slept and there is no telling what I had forgotten during the night. I would write it down in order not to have to remember and keep juggling bits of information in my brain. This in itself relieves stress, especially if you only write these things in one place.
This is why we recommend using one calendar not fifteen of them or twenty different slips of paper stashed in your purse, posted on the refrigerator or piled on a so-called desk that is a superfund hotspot! We don’t even care what kind of calendar you use, just that you practice using one. I had wasted a lot of money on planners/calendars, so I told myself that I would not buy anything else until I could develop the habits that would insure that the calendar would be used instead of gathering dust. I started with a $3.00 pocket planner. You know the ones that you get as an advertisement at the beginning of a new year. I used this until my schedule became too big and I didn’t have enough room to write in the lines. Most of our families have this problem too. We need big blocks to write in.
We want to teach you how to use your calendar. Those of you that have purchased the Calendar from our website, we would like to thank you, but keep in mind it is a tool and a tool will do you no good, if you don’t learn how to use it properly.
Checking your calendar is part of your morning and before bed routine.
Each week we check our schedules with our family members to determine our menus for the next week and prepare our grocery list. You can also use it on your desk day to plan for bill paying and sending birthday cards. Your calendar will become your life if you will use it in conjunction with your control journal to act as your memory so you don’t have to.
These skills don’t happen overnight. They take time to develop and implement. You can do this. Let me tell you, if I can do this after 30 years of being Calendar Challenged, you can too.
I want for you what I have and it is a peace that comes from not missing an appointment, paying my bills on time and knowing that I haven’t forgotten some important date. You can have this too. Follow our direction and you will find yourself FLYing before you know it. Babysteps will get you there. I promise.
Are you ready to learn to FLY?
FlyLady
Don’t procrastinate! Get your calendar before we run out! Our new habit for March is Getting Dressed to Lace Up Shoes when we first get up in the morning. Check your calendar so you can pick out the proper clothing for tomorrow. Picking your clothes the night before makes getting dressed easy!
