Completely Capable | FlyLady.net

Dear FlyLady,

I really feel that I owe you so much. You see in Spring 2004, my husband and I purchased our first house. I was very happy it when we first made the purchase. In a very short time, though, that happiness turned to guilt. Neither of us are born organized people, and it wasn’t long before our house was in C.H.A.O.S. I wondered if there was any point to purchasing a nice house when the mess wasn’t under control. No matter how nice the house itself was, it wasn’t a pleasant environment. I thought we should have left the house for somebody else to purchase who could have properly maintained the look of the home. Instead of feeling joyous about owning my home as I should have, I just felt miserable about it.

About a year and a half after purchasing our home, it was my turn to host my book club at my home. We dealt with the mess by stuffing all of the clutter upstairs and hiring a cleaning service to clean the downstairs where guests would be. Once the downstairs had been cleaned, I knew I wanted to maintain it that way. I’d heard about Fly Lady through an on-line forum I belonged to. Many people on the forum had tried your system and been pleased with it, so I decided to give it a go.

Right away I could see how helpful FlyLady could be regardless of the level of clutter. The upstairs, where we had dumped all of the mess, was in such bad shape that most of the floors were not even visible. Normally, I would have felt too overwhelmed to know where to start. Instead, I found your FLYing Lesson: How to Declutter. I knew I could start at the top of the stairs and work clockwise. I set a timer for 15 minutes and started putting things in the “Give Away”, “Throw Away”, and “Put Away” containers. By the end of those fifteen minutes, it was rewarding to see how a section of the room already looked well organized. My husband and I each worked on the upstairs for just 15 minutes a day using the decluttering system. With just those fifteen minute a day, it did not take very long before the upstairs was organized.

Meantime, my hope for the downstairs was to keep it look nice. I never believed I was capable of maintaining an organized room. Every time I had tried in the past, I would forget to put things away, and the area would become messy within a few hours. It feels a little silly now, but I thought that meant I had already failed. Learning about hot spot cleaning was a huge revelation. I realized just because I couldn’t keep things organized every minute of the day, it didn’t mean I was failing. By taking a few minutes to clean the flat surfaces each day, I could still stay on top of the mess.

I started reading your e-mails everyday and adopting other practices in to my life as well. Adopting a before bed routine was incredible. I had been used to running around before work each morning searching for my things. By setting everything up the evening before, my mornings became so much more relaxing.

I also realized after reading your e-mails how much of my aversion to cleaning came from growing up with a mom who criticized the way I cleaned. I would try to wipe things down and she would tell me I wasn’t doing it right. I never wanted to do it because I didn’t trust that the house was really clean when I was done. Your kind words that I was still blessing my home were exactly what I needed to hear!

It’s been four and a half years since I’ve incorporated the Fly Lady system into my life. I have made it a habit to set aside time to do some organizing and cleaning each day. My husband also does more since he’s realized he can work in chunks of fifteen minutes at a time. Our house isn’t kept perfect on most days, but it is much better than it was before. I have hosted my book club several more times, and we now feel completely capable of handling the cleaning ourselves.

I’ve purchased products from FlyLady, but you honestly deserve a much greater payment than that. I remember how I felt about my house in the first year and a half we lived here before I discovered FlyLady. Now thanks to FlyLady, I can actually appreciate this house. So if had to pay you based on what your advice has actually been worth to me, I genuinely believe you would be getting the value of my entire house.

Grateful Flybaby in Upstate NY

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