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I've recently been re-reading Sink Reflections, by Marla Cilley, aka 'Flylady'.
I would hazard a guess that anyone who has searched the internet for anything related to cleaning one's house has run across
the Flylady and her incessant emails. :) For the people who like her no-nonsense and bossy approach, they can't
say enough good things about her. I think I'm going to rejoin her email list and start getting my butt kicked into gear
again. In the meantime, I've been working on routines and zones from the book.
If you've somehow missed seeing Flylady, check out her extensive website here: www.flylady.net
Flylady's biggest sticking point, aside from the kitchen sink, is wearing shoes every day. I
gotta say, it's bizarre, but oh so true. If I put my shoes on in the morning, I get much more done. I've started
noticing the days that are a total waste, and every single one is a day when I didn't bother with shoes in the morning, if
at all. Take this weekend, for example. Yesterday I got up, got dressed, put on shoes, and got quite a bit done.
In a haphazard, puttering sort of way, but things got done. Today, no shoes, not a darned thing done. Total waste.
I put shoes on this evening to go out and get dinner when Chris got home, telling myself that I would get some cleaning done
when the kids were in bed, but I made the mistake of sitting down at the computer, and, well. . . . Anyway, my point
is, she may have some kooky-sounding ideas, but there's something to them.
Oh so much later note... For those who like the Flylady system but
also enjoy a little kindergarten-style motivation, I can't recommend enough the Purple Chat and Challenge Yahoo group and website. Based on Flylady's zones and 15-minutes at a time principles, PCC is a points-based accountability and goal-setting
group. There is a list of Daily Missions with a number of points attached to each. And each day the list owner,
Pam, sends out the Purple Daily Challenge (PDC) with another group of bonus chores with points. Each person sets their
own point goals in accordance to their home, life, and desires, and you earn points each day by completing items on the Daily
Mission list and the PDC. Depending on how detailed you like to be with your to-do list, and how much points motivate
you, most people earn between 175 and 3500 points per day. Since a frequent addition to the PDC is the entry "10 points
for a written to-do list and 5 points for each completed item", those of us with obsessively long computerized lists who post
them twice daily (morning as a plan and evening as completed), those points add up fast.
A "day off" for me is usually around 500-750 points. A reasonable
working day is between 1500-2000 points, and an exceptionally productive (and lucky in that what I needed to do was offered
as points that day) day will be 3000 or more. My personal best (and the group record as far as I know, not that anybody
keeps track) was 4350 on 5/21/2005. To be fair, however, that was a "stacked" day, where I had PDC items and points
from several days' lists done on one day because I was catching up. My highest straight up single day all above board
total was yesterday (6/30/2005), at 3145. I believe that may also be above anyone else's record, but as I said, we don't
keep track. It's all about beating yourself and your own goals, not competing with others. The only reason I even
have an idea is because I just spent the better part of an hour going through the group archives to find out. LOL
I do know that I don't have the highest monthly total though - I'm not terribly consistent. I'll have 3000+ point days
next to 650 point days. Someone just posted a June total of 50249 - I wasn't even second with 29384. So anyway,
what I'm getting at is that the group and the points are great motivators. I'm getting things done that I wouldn't otherwise,
and I'm having fun doing it. :) To subscribe for yourself, click the Yahoo button below:
Click to join purplecc
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