I'd heard of FlyLady before, with her system for helping those of us who were born creative—i.e. distractible and disorganized. But I was quickly turned off by her system. Perhaps it was her annoying perkiness, which slaps you in the face, even in the design and colors of her website. More likely she lost me at Beginner Baby Step #2, which requires us to put on shoes before we even begin the day. I don't wear shoes any more than is absolutely necessary, and we have a shoes-off-at-the-door policy in our house. (Not for guests, so don't let that stop you from visiting.) On the other hand, perhaps the requirement to wear shoes until the work is done would do wonders for my productivity, who knows? Anyway, I filed FlyLady under "Somewhat Interesting, Maybe, Someday" and there she has remained.
But Janet has been wiser and stayed with the program long enough to find some great wheat in the chaff. For example, the famous "Swish & Swipe" (which I mis-typed as "Swiss & Swipe" the first time) for the bathrooms. Janet taught it to me when she was here. I adapted it to my own use, and I LOVE IT.
Here's how I do Swish & Swipe each morning. It's supposed to take two minutes; I'm not quite that fast, but it's not much more.
- I have a toilet-cleaning brush that sits in a container that will hold water (I think most do). This is filled with soapy water, and is one of my favorite Fly Lady ideas. Any soap will do. At the moment I'm using dish soap, but before that it was the dregs of shampoo. (I put some water in the empty bottle, shook it up, and poured the liquid into the toilet brush holder. It was "free" soap and made me feel good because it wasn't wasted.) So first thing I do is clean the toiled bowl with this.
- Then I spray a little mild cleanser on the mirror, the counter, the sink, the rest of the toilet, sometimes the bathtub, and also the floor just around the toilet. ("Glass and surface cleaner" or "all-purpose cleaner" usually—I try to avoid disinfectants, and see no need to have a special cleanser just for the bathroom.) I do go through a lot more of the cleaner using it daily like this, but it's not too expensive. Maybe someday I'll learn to make my own.
- Starting from the "top" (mirror) I work my way down from cleanest to dirtiest, using a cloth—old washcloths, mostly. The toilet is next-to-last, followed by using the same cloth on the floor. Originally I had swept the floor with a broom in a separate step, but that had two problems. First, it was another step, requiring more equipment that had to be brought in from another place. Second, if I swept the floor first, then I would miss anything swept onto the floor when I cleaned the counter, etc. But I always manage to drip a bit when I lift the toilet brush out of its container, so if I swept the floor last, I'd have to deal with wet spots. Our bathrooms are small enough that it is no problem to wipe the floor on hands and knees as I work from the toilet to the door. As a side benefit, since I'm on my hands and knees anyway, the hard-to-reach area behind the toilet stays clean.
- Repeat for the second bathroom. Janet taught me that it's important to have duplicate materials, so that all you need is there. It's amazing how less likely I am to do it consistently if I have to fetch something.
Here's what I've discovered.
- It's not really a time-saver for me. If I add up the time spent doing this each day, it's probably more time than the job would take doing it once a week.
- But it's a HUGE sanity-saver! It's such an emotional boost to see clean bathrooms all the time. You might not think it's a problem with just two adults living here, but you'd be surprised. Even without long-haired beauties in residence, hair gets everywhere, and in the bathroom with the white tiled floor every single hair stands out as an annoying beacon, proclaiming, "Dirty bathroom alert!" Even cleaning once a day I still see hairs, but they never have a chance to accumulate and gather dust and other dirt.
- To quote Janet (more or less), "I never have to clean my bathroom, because my bathroom's always clean!" Cleaning the bathroom is one of those grit-your-teeth jobs. It's much easier to face a quick job daily.
- Because nothing gets all that dirty in one day, and because I work from cleanest to dirtiest, I use only one cloth instead of the two sponges (toilet and non-toilet) of my previous routine. And it doesn't hang around. I just throw it in the washing machine and it gets washed with other things in a day or two. (Janet will have to answer for how it works when you can only do laundry one day a week. Maybe if you're not in a hot climate like Florida's you don't have to worry about damp things mildewing while they wait to be washed.)
- For me, at least, it's really, really important to do the routine first thing in the morning. My rule is, the first time I go into the bathroom, I don't come out until I've done the Swish & Swipe. And I do the other bathroom at the same time as I make the bed. Waiting until later in the day still gets the job done, but takes away much of the psychological boost.
- Because I clean more often than "necessary," I'm more relaxed about it. If I miss something one day, I'm sure to catch it the next.
- Similarly, if I have to miss a day (or even two), there's no worry, no stress. In fact, I take Sundays off. It adds much to the glory of the Sabbath to know I don't have to bother with even a two-minute bathroom cleaning. :) If circumstances cause me to miss Saturday, I still take Sunday off, and the bathrooms are clean enough even if we have guests. I don't want to miss Monday, though. I think it was Pablo Casals who said, "If I don't practice for one day, I can hear it in my playing. If I don't practice for two, my fellow musicians can hear it. But if I skip practicing for three days, the whole world knows."
That's all I'll write about here, because that's the only FlyLady routine I've adopted so far. It's been so helpful I'll probably risk the perky parade and adapt/adopt some more in the future. Especially if Janet (or Heather) does it first. :)
Not the shoes, though.
