Doing a Whole Lot of Cleaning - Update

This is going to be a pretty short post, but it's been a few months now since I started using our adapted version of the Fly Lady to try and get our flat in a better state than it had been at the start of the year.  And I have to say that, even in such a short space of time, the outcome has been pretty good.

It's obviously not completely spotless as it is a lived-in space and I wouldn't want to live in what is basically a show home anyway.  The real trick has been doing the 15 minutes clean every day to work your way through the list of recommended tasks.  I have to admit that there have been a few times where I really couldn't be bothered when I got home after work, but most of the time I've managed to convince myself to actually do it as it's such a short amount of time.  It helps that the flat is also so small that usually I only need to do a few days of 15-minute cleaning and the zone is complete.

Probably the most unexpected thing to come out of this has been just how much extra stuff I've been able to declutter.  There must be something about regularly looking at a space properly that allows you to see what you have there and what really isn't being used as the weeks go on.  There are still a few tasks that need to be done before that flat reaches the level of cleanliness that I would like, but we are getting there and this length of time is to be expected based on how long we let everything slide before.

One thing I definitely need to do moving forward is to rewrite the list of things that need to be cleaned in each zone.  At the moment it just has all the things that are recommended on the Fly Lady website, but that doesn't really work for our space and I've noticed that I've missed a few things when cleaning.  

At the moment I still leave the weekly home blessing to Ed as this allows us to share the housework easily and there are some things that we don't bother doing at all, like shining the kitchen sink and doing a daily wipe of the bathroom.  However, the flat is still looking a lot better than it did when we started this and it's also become a lot easier to keep it clean and tidy.  All I need to do now is keep up these daily 15-minute cleans.  What I'm hoping is that they just become a habit.....hopefully very soon.

Doing a Whole Lot of Cleaning

As I put in my last post, the flat has become a bit of a disaster and definitely needs a reset /spring clean.  It also doesn't help that it's quite small, so any amount of mess looks bad.  I decided to bring back a cleaning method I use to use to help slowly bring the flat back into order, and that is the Fly Lady.

In its most basic set up, that I've taken anyway, you have a morning and evening routine that allows you to stay organised and keep clean the most used areas of your home.  Then there's the 'Weekly Home Blessing Hour' that is a cleaning routine you do to keep your home in a general state of cleanliness, as well as a rota of tasks you do on specific days during the week such as paying bills and organising a menu plan.  The last thing is the zone cleaning, which sees you tackling each room in the house for a week at a time and is where all the deep cleaning happens.  It's also when you do any decluttering that is needed.  

I'm not following this cleaning method exactly to the letter but have adapted it to fit what suits us right now.  Such as I don't really do the morning or evening routines and that means we need to add cleaning the bathroom to the weekly home blessing.  We also don't need to do a laundry load every day, which is just as well as the electricity bill would be massive if we did.  I have to admit that the weekly home blessing is something that my husband does rather than me.  I've been working more on the zones and we share tasks like the laundry.  

Before

Our flat isn't really separated into lots of rooms, so to do the zone cleaning I've separated the main living space into a hallway, bedroom, living room, and craft /office room and I'll just work through each area separately.  The idea here is to set your timer to 15 minutes a day and work your way through what the Fly Lady recommends you do in each zone to give it a deep clean, at least until you've worked out your own routine.  Once the 15 minutes are up you stop in that zone until the next day and if you don't complete every task by the end of the week you just leave them until the zone comes around again.

After

The first thing you actually do in each zone before the cleaning can begin is decluttering as there's no point in cleaning things that don't need to be there.  Even though we do declutter on a regular basis I have been surprised at just how much extra stuff I've been able to get rid of.  Obviously I'm only doing my things and our general items, I'm not touching any of my husband's things.  That's for him to go through.

Before

So far I've gone through the hallway, kitchen, bathroom, and office /craft room.  Even though the last two zones I'm yet to do are the ones that take up the main living area of the flat the space already feels to much better and more inviting.  The last two zones are actually the ones I'm most dreading and will probably be the most work, but they're probably also going to be the most satisfying to complete.

After

As with almost everything in life, the Fly Lady won't work for everyone and I've already started adapting it to fit our needs.  However, I do think the small amounts done on a regular basis works better for me than just going at everything in one go.  The whole idea here is if you do small amounts of work on a regular basis than your home will always look good and be clean.  Even though I've separated out the main living space into four separate zones right now, once we've got to the stage where we're now just maintaining it I will probably just treat them as one area to be cleaned all at the same time and give myself two weeks instead of one.  In the not so distant future the flat will be clean and tidy again and I'm looking forward to that moment very much.