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Ask FlyLady Archive!
This is our archive of the previous weeks Ask FlyLady questions and answers. If you missed a question from last week, this is the place to find it.
Ask FlyLady is one of our favorite parts of FlyLady.net. We get so many questions sent to us everyday, that we have decided to share some of these questions and FlyLady's answers with you. You may be surprised by what she has to say! Enjoy.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Office in a bag List...
Dear FlyLady,
I know I've seen the list of items recommended for the office in a bag somewhere - but now that I'm ready to put one together I can't find the info... can you tell me where to look for that info?? Cath
Dear Friend,
Your Office in a Bag is just that; it is a portable desk drawer. In your desk drawer you would have pens for writing checks and composing letters. You would have some thank you notes and greeting cards. If you were going to balance your checkbook you would have a calculator and a pencil. In order to mail those bills, cards and letters; you would need stamps and address labels. Oh and don't forget your address book. There is nothing more exasperating than wanting to mail a letter and not having the address where you can find it. You may need tape, staples, paper clips, sharpies or anything else that you can imagine and we are so good at that imagine part. Here is the hard part. We cannot fill it up with too much stuff. It has to remain light and portable.
When we designed the office in a bag we made a pocket to hold a small address book or a palm pilot, there is a zippered pocket to hold what ever you want. The Office in a Bag is a three ring binder cover. YOU have to put the three ring binder in place and we all have them around our homes. There is a larger pocket on the inside back cover for holding your bills or your checkbook.
Some people use the Office in a Bag to hold their Control Journals. We can get too much stuff in our Control Journals if we don't watch it. My Office in a Bag is different from my Control Journal. I rarely remove my Control Journal from my house except to show it as an example. As for my Office in a Bag; It goes with me often since I don't really have a desk at our office: I can take it with me and do what I need to do. I have even slipped my laptop in mine. The only time I ever feel that you would need to remove your Control Journal from your home is when you are being evacuated.
If you only have your address book in a digital form then it is time that you printed it out and put it in a hard copy for your office in a bag and your Control Journal. I can't tell you how many times I have lost my whole address book because I forgot to change the batteries in my digital diary. I have even seen some that were printed out very small and folded up and put in the glove box of a car for on the road emergencies. I just reprinted my whole address book for my Office in a Bag. I feel better now. I am going to put this on my calendar and update my address book once a month on the 11th.
- FlyLady
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Start with the sink...
Dear FlyLady,
My mother has frequently told me that I can clutter faster than anyone! I am beginning to see that my messes make life more difficult for me, as I lose my care keys, can't find my shoes when I want to go somewhere, etc. I am beginning to understand the value of routine, but I am struggling with how to set up routines, when, as a registered nurse, I have an erratic work schedule. Some days it's 12 hours, some days 8, once in a while 4, or even 16. My scheduled 6 shifts often become 8 because we are all asked to come in extra when the patient load is greater than the original staffing pattern was prepared for. Add to that providing home care for my disabled husband, and doing things for church. I just can 't seem to come up with a routine schedule that will help me establish good habits.
I really would like to have the peaceful kind of home that you talk about, one where I could be proud to invite people in. How do I start a control journal when the only thing consistent is I am scheduled off every other Friday, Saturday, and Sunday?
Can I really start with only doing my sink every day? And not even working on the zones until the sink is a habit?
A fluttering middle-aged flybaby in Minnesota
Dear Friend,
Yes Dear, shining your sink will change your life. You have to quit looking for reasons not to try this and adapt our simple routines to fit your life. Your schedule may be varied but let's look for some common denominators: You have to get up and get dressed for work, You eventually come home and you go to bed. These are where you piggy-back your simple morning routine. It doesn't matter if your get up time is 5am or 3pm; you still have to get up, get dressed and while you are doing this; you swish and swipe your bathroom. While you grab something for breakfast; empty your dishwasher while the coffee is making, then shine your sink before you leave your kitchen.
You can do something similar when you get home; put everything away that you come in the door with; do not dump it on your hotspot. Change clothes and lay out your outfit for tomorrow; start dinner, and put a load in the washer and dryer. Then it will be time for bed; do a simple before bed routine of making sure our kitchen is clean and sink shining before you head off to get ready for bed, put away your laundry, then wash your face and brush your teeth and get into bed at a decent hour.
As you establish some simple habits; your home will almost be cleaning itself. The main thing is pick up after yourself. Anytime you catch yourself putting something down with these words ringing in your head, "I'll do that later!" Well later never comes and your hotspots take over your home. Even two minutes of decluttering a day will help you get rid of your chaos. Bag it up and put it by your door so you can take it with you to donate each each day. You can't organize clutter; you can only get rid of it. As one testimonial said the other day, she has been decluttering a junk room and she spend 5 minutes each day getting rid of clutter by doing a 5 minute Room Rescue. Each time she does it; she puts a turtle sticker on her calendar to remind her that slow and stead wins the race. Your routines will change your life! Take babysteps and start with your kitchen sink.
- FlyLady
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Two gifts behind...
Dear FlyLady,
How do I keep up with birthday gifts, cards, etc.?
I did really good with your prompting during Christmas, but the rest of the year fizzles. I totally spaced last month, and now I am two gifts behind.
Help?
FlyBaby since October 2001
Dear Friend,
We have to learn how to use our calendar to remind us to look into next month. But if you have not sat down with your calendar and put a sticker on the birthdays of your family members this is not going to help you. It only takes 5 minutes. So get down your calendar and do it now.
On the 27th of each month; I remind myself to look at the next month for those birthdays and anniversaries. I put this on my to do list: Pick up cards. When I buy cards I usually buy several at one time and put them in my office in a bag. I use my Office in a Bag for this correspondence.
For years I have used my version of our Office in a Bag. In it I kept my checkbook, pens, pencils, a colored pen for signing cards, greeting cards, thank you notes, my address book, postage stamps, a calculator, paper clips, a little stapler, a ruler, some graft paper, a high lighter, some pretty stationery, some plain paper and a little notebook paper. This was like having everything in a desk drawer with me at all times. I took it with me to work, so on my lunch hour; I could pay a bill, balance my check book, write a letter, send a card, make out a grocery list or plan my menus for next week. This little tool allowed me the flexibility to use tiny bits of time while I was waiting for football practice to end.
So let's fast forward to the present time. I used the my version of the Office in a Bag for many years successfully; I even used it when I was my mother's guardian; to pay her bills, keep up with insurance papers, her medications and other information. After mother died, I put everything away and dismantled my Office in a Bag. I didn't think I needed to use it anymore. Robert and I had a place to put our bills; I adopted his habits when we married. We have a small house. Robert's office is in our basement. I don't have a place that I can call my office or a desk. I have my favorite chair and a couple of hotspots brewing on the tables on my left and right.
I am a SHE and I will always be a SHE; I need a place for my stuff too. My own little Office in a Bag with my favorite pens and things to do my correspondence; Since I don't have an office at the FLY Shop; I also need it to be portable so I can grab it and go when I need to spend several hours at the FLY Shop. So I have put together my Office in a Bag once again. It keeps me from procrastinating and taking a lot of time to just mail a card or a check. Or the best part it keeps me from running around the house looking for a pen, a stamp and the address; Parkinson's Law is not going to creep in and take over my life like the lady in Professor Parkinson book; Parkinson's Law.
We all have the stuff that goes in the Office in a Bag; We may have to hunt for it all over the house; this is why we did not include these things in the bag. The Office in a Bag is a purple canvas cover (and a black one now) for a one inch three ring binder with a zipper pocket and other pockets to hold our stuff. We are SHEs and we love office supplies. We wanted to keep the price reasonable. We even priced the stuff to go in it, but decided to let go of our perfectionism and keep it simple.
Here is our Calendar and our Office in a Bag.
http://flylady.net/pages/FlyShop_calendar.asp
http://flylady.net/pages/FlyShop_OIB.asp
- FlyLady
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Two dusters...
Dear FlyLady,
Why are there two feather dusters? There's only one of me (no little ones anymore to help bless the world). I have the smaller duster (works great). What would be the advantage of having the larger one, too?
(Apologies if you answered this before. I did email a while back, but didn't think to check Ask FlyLady on the web to see if you answered. Still, I can't imagine I'm the only one who has wondered about this.)
Dear Friend,
When we designed the 16 inch duster we felt like it just what FlyLady ordered. Then for a Christmas gift we put together a larger and longer duster especially for people that could not reach the ceiling corners with the little duster. It was such a success that we kept it in our FLY Shop. It was our ladies that started calling them the Mommy duster and the Baby duster.
Now they have become a way to motivate children to help bless our homes. What a wonderful accident!!
Here is a beautiful testimonial about babies blessing the house.
Dear FlyLady,
After 6 months of flying, fluttering and doing routines, I also got a feather duster this past week!! I expected to like it, but I didn't expect it to feel like it was made especially for me. My 5 yr old Dear Son talked about it every day until it came, the magic wand that shoots feathers. When it finally came we were ecstatic.
I said, "There is only one rule with the magic dusters: they are for blessing the house, and everything we say has to be a kind, blessing sort of thing." and we were off, he with the little duster and me with the big one. We blessed not only our family and friends and home, we blessed the lady bugs that live here and the spiders and the dead spiders!!!
My Dear Son turned to me and said, "I bet you didn't know that I was such a good house blesser!"
"NO I didn't" I replied.
"THAT is because I'm your little flyboy!" He said, "You know what is good about the flylady dusters? They pick up the dirt, not just push them into piles like other dusters" (do you visit these children in their sleep?? We never dusted before!) Then he reminded me to shake it out, and ran onto the deck with his arms up to the sky and yelled at the top of his lungs, "BLESS THE WORLD"
blessings in CT
FlyLady here: Every time I read this testimonial I end up in purple puddles. I use it to end every speech I give.
At the bottom of our homepage is a link on how to care for your duster. They do get dirty and need to be cleaned. If you have noticed that the static electricity is has left the duster; then it is time for a bath.
http://flylady.net/pages/FlyDuster1.asp
- FlyLady
Monday, August 18, 2008
Hotspots...
Dear FlyLady,
Hello,
We are fairly new to all of this. Wondering what hot spots are. We get mailings informing us to go “police your Hot Spots right now. Everyone grab their stuff and put it away. This means you too. 2 minutes Go!” but we are clueless about what those hot spots are.
Please help
Dear Friend,
We all have hot spots, because we put off till later what we should do right now. We lay something down and never get around to putting it away. You know that place where you put everything when you walk through your door: The end of the kitchen counter, that foyer table or the rocking chair that no one can sit in because it is filled with stuff.
We tell ourselves that we don't have time to put things away because we have to do cook dinner. If we would just take 1 minute when we walk through the door to put everything away that is in our hands then our hot spots would not take over our home.
Hot Spots happen for another reason. We don't know where to put something. It doesn't have a home. Poor STUFF. It is homeless. You have too much STUFF. It is time to clear out and declutter.
We find ourselves placing something on a table, because of habit. I want you to think about things as you have something in your hand. Look at your hands when you leave a room. What is in it? Are you taking your hairbrush to the kitchen or your dishcloth to the bathroom. Notice what you are doing and don't lay something down, unless it belongs there.
Did you know that your home will look clean if you eliminate your Hot Spots?
When we have to get ready for company, we spend most of our time dumping our Hot Spots in our Bedrooms. I like to call it Stash and Dash!
When we clean this way, we take everything that is piled on flat surfaces and put it in a bag and place it in our junk room. That door is closed to the public. Boy can we clean when we have to! Not really!!!
When we do this, we are just putting off till later to deal with those papers because you are in such a tizzy to get ready for
company. Then when you need something that was in that pile on the dining room table; you can't find it since you have stashed it in some bag in your bedroom floor. At that point all the bags throw up in your bedroom and you have a bigger mess than you had in the first place.
How do you deal with Hot Spots then? I do it by policing them twice a day. Why do you think I send out that reminder in the morning and in the evening? We have to stay vigilant with our Hot Spots. Piles of papers and other stuff that accumulates in your Hot Spots make your home look cluttered and dirty. Just getting rid of them gives you the freedom to have people over without killing yourself cleaning and sorting through the piles.
Take 5 minutes this afternoon and work on one and only one Hot Spot. We can do this if we will do just a little every day to reduce the piles. This also means quit piling stuff in your Hot Spots. Put things away when you want to put them down in your Hot Spots.
Hot Spots Elimination Helps Us To FLY!
- FlyLady
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