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Marla silli
American housewife Marla Scilly came up with several rules that made the whole of America, and then the whole world, sparkle. Housewives got rid of the trash, put things in order in their bedrooms and garages, threw out thousands of unnecessary things, began to look after themselves and walk around the house in moccasins. Marla claims that before she lived in complete chaos, wept in the evenings from powerlessness and did not have time to do anything around the house. Until it occurred to her to clean the sink to a shine.
How it works and who is it for
The FlyLady system (“flying housewives”) was invented for those women who can never clean up the house for only one reason: inappropriate perfectionism. They are confused, they do not know where to start, they get to cleaning for weeks, then they spend the whole day with a broom and a rag, and then they cannot start cleaning for another month – they are so tired! Marla urges negligent housewives to forgive themselves, abandon the pursuit of perfection, not try to do everything at once and bless themselves and their home.
You just need
- give up perfectionism
- take small steps
- perform morning and evening “routines” (this is how FlyLady calls a set of identical actions that help maintain order in the house)
- clean the sink to a shine and always make the bed
- devote yourself at least an hour a day
The bottom line is that, according to Marla, you “did not create this mess in one day – and it is stupid to try to clean everything up in the evening.” With small steps (called Baby Steps in the system), you can get closer to your goal – perfect order – faster than by jerking marches once a month.
Where to start?
To become a full member of the FlyLady system, you must do three things today:
- Dress and put on your shoes. Only not in an old robe, but in decent clothes, in which you can go out (for example, take out the trash) and work around the house.
- Make your bed.
- Scrub the sink to a dazzling shine.
The shell as a whole has some kind of sacred meaning in the system. I don’t know how it works, but in reality – as soon as you clean the sink and remove the dishes from it, the whole space in the house magically “pulls up” and strives for cleanliness. Even the husband and children try to clean up after themselves, if they see how everyone else – and the sink in the first place! – shines.
Basic system concepts
FlyBabies – newcomers to the system. For them, the most important thing is not to rush to the general cleaning, to save their strength and to move with minimal steps.
“Reminders” – FlyLady sends about 15 short email reminders to registered members every day. Something like “did you forget to remove the receipts from the table?” Someone finds this useful, but newbies just go crazy with such a system – so subscribe only if you are an advanced hostess!
Put on your lace-up shoes
Audit log – a special notebook in which you have to write down your daily to-do list, important phones, cleaning zones, shopping lists and important thoughts.
Blessing home – cleaning itself, which takes only 1 hour a week (you can do the rest in short, five-minute approaches during the week).
Hot Spots – places in your house that are always littered with all kinds of rubbish. Tables near the bed, a bedside table in the hallway, an empty chair – if, within an hour after cleaning, there are mountains of magazines, papers, clothes and unnecessary things on them, then you have a “hot spot” in front of you.
Zone – the whole house (or the apartment is divided into five main zones):
- Zone 1: entrance / hallway / dining room
- Zone 2: kitchen / back door / laundry / storage room
- Zone 3: main bathroom / additional bedroom / nursery / workshop
- Zone 4: master bedroom / bathroom / toilet
- Zone 5: living room
Every week you should devote all of your time (on a timer!) To cleaning one of these areas.
Timer – in order not to get carried away and not to try to clean up the whole house in one night, FlyLady strongly advises to clean exactly according to the timer. You need to start at five minutes in the morning and five minutes in the evening, gradually increasing the “cleaning dose” to 15-minute intervals three times a day.
Shoes with laces – if you walk around the house in sneakers or moccasins, you avoid the temptation to lie down and relax, plus you can always jump out into the staircase and throw out the trash, open the door to your neighbor or go downstairs for the mail.
«Bugi-vugi 27» – a short and fun exercise during which you run around the house with a waste basket and throw out the first 27 unnecessary things that come to hand. A week of ruthless “boogie woogie” – and your home is unrecognizable!
FlyLady Commands
- Keep your sink clean and shiny.
- Get dressed every morning, even if you don’t feel like it at all. Don’t forget about lace-up shoes.
- Do your morning and evening routines every day.
- Don’t let yourself sit around your computer.
- Clean up after you: take out a thing – put it back.
- Don’t try to do two things at the same time. Only one at a time!
- Do not reach more than you can clean in 1 hour.
- Do something for yourself every day. Every morning and every evening.
- Try to work as fast as possible. This will free up time for more enjoyable activities.
- Always smile! You can not? Force yourself! It’s contagious. Your brain starts to think that everything is really good.
- Remember to laugh every day. And pamper yourself! You deserve it!
Personal experience
A bit “religious” (well, you know the fanaticism of American manuals like “Change Your Life in Ten Days”), the FlyLady system still works. It has been tested on thousands of women, including Russians – its popularity is evidenced by the circulation of the book translated into many languages (you can buy it at for 236 rubles) and the number of subscribers to mailing sites и … LJ even exists in Russian , dedicated to the issues of cleaning the FlyLady system and this system in general.
There are several reviews from the participants:
“I fly only the fourth day, and the changes (both in the apartment and in the mind) are already evident. Today I discovered that unnoticed, “passing by”, somehow by itself cleaned the stove and washed the kettle from the splashes of fat. I think that the kettle and the stove just looked at the sink and they felt jealous ? (before, the stove could be “overgrown” for a long time with drops of grease, escaped coffee, etc., and the kettle has not been washed outside at all since the moment of purchase). But most importantly, I did it on the machine, without thinking about the fact that “I need to wash the stove… someday”.
“After the last few visits to the guests, the husband asked:“ Why are we the only ones to clean the house? ”. All it took was to make it a rule to wash the dishes and the stove immediately after eating and disassemble the hot spots every day. I want to continue :)! “
Do you want to start? Or is such a system not for you?