Scheherazade in Blue Jeans
freelance alchemist
 
11th-Oct-2006 08:47 am
Everything hurts/Doesn't work
FlyLady is pissing me off.

For those unfamiliar with FlyLady - they send e-mails throughout the day to remind you of all the cleaning you're supposed to be doing. And all of the other random things you're supposed to be doing.

"Swish and swipe!"
"Remember your shoes!"
"Drink your water!"
"Where's your laundry?"

All day.

And I'm often exhausted and/or in pain when I get them. So my reaction, rather than "oh yeah, I should go do laundry," is "Fuck you, FlyLady."

There should be a FlyLady for fibro. She should send e-mails like "Remember to rest" and "gentle exercise" and stuff like that. And less frequently. She should send tips not for intensive bouts of cleaning, but for ways to simplify, ways to make the difficult-yet-necessary shit easier.

Here's a good article on that.

And another.

And another.

Hmph.
  • Mood:frustratedfrustrated
Comments 
11th-Oct-2006 12:56 pm (UTC)
zarhooie
If you want 'em, I'll volunteer! No one says they'll be as often/consistant as FlyLady's, but I'll try. :)
11th-Oct-2006 12:57 pm (UTC)
heathrow
Honestly, I don't understand how anyone has enough time to deal with the barrage of Flylady emails. "Look, if I need to get this done, I don't have time to read 09384029384234 automated emails a day!"
11th-Oct-2006 12:58 pm (UTC)
kissmythistle
I am a casual FLY-er, and I like the 15-minute rule, but the shoe thing gets me. On the weekends, the last thing I want to do in my own house is wear shoes. I get plenty of stuff done barefoot. (Of course, note that I *was* wearing my lace-ups for packing last weekend...:)

I had to stop getting the reminder emails, because most of them were irrelevant at work, other than the water-drinking ones.
11th-Oct-2006 01:08 pm (UTC)
e_scapism101
I signed up for the flylady and then discovered that I could reduce wasted time and clutter by not bothering to read the ten gazillion daily reminder e-mails.

And, no, I'm not wearing shoes in my own house. If I want to clean in barefeet and sweatpants, I will.

11th-Oct-2006 01:09 pm (UTC)
fiannaharpar
I've switched to BatLady (kind of like FlyLady for people who work, FAR fewer emails, same good advice).

I've also started printing out and using the enouraging coach (www.encouragingcoach.com) to help simplify my life. I run an insane pace nearly at all times, and I have to slow down. I don't have fibro and my health is being negatively impacted by my own schedule.

Love yourself and give yourself permission to slow down and take care of yourself.
11th-Oct-2006 01:10 pm (UTC)
jesshartley
I think it's a matter of focus. FlyLady isn't designed for folks who are spoon-challenged, as a matter of course. You'd have the same issue with a daily exercise program that was designed for those with average energy levels, rather than those with physical challenges. Were I you, I'd ditch it right away. It would be like me signing up for a marathon runner's daily prodding - Inappropriate and ineffective.

I love the idea of a fibro fly-lady. The focus, of course, would be very different. I love the "economy of movement" themes of the links you posted. I try to use some of them in my daily life, even without physical challenges. Things like "never leave a room without checking to see if there's something that can go with you" make daily clean up easier, as you're cutting down on trips. If you can carry the empty glass with you when you're going to the kitchen to answer the phone, you won't have to make a seperate trip there later to haul dirty dishes. If you throw a roll of papertowels from the basement pantry in on top of the load of clean laundry you're hauling up from the basement laundry room, that's one less trip up and down the stairs when you discover you're out of paper towels later... etc.

Hang in there.
11th-Oct-2006 01:11 pm (UTC)
ewtikins
I don't have fibro (or probably not, anyway; symptoms as of late suggest I have something that is making me so exhausted and achy all the time), and I find FlyLady annoying, too.

11th-Oct-2006 01:21 pm (UTC)
eustaciavye
what's the deal with the shoes??
11th-Oct-2006 01:45 pm (UTC)
e_scapism101
Per the Flylady, you are supposed to get up every morning and get dressed completely, down to your shoes. Because the world will fall apart and angels will eat babies if you think you can clean without wearing your shoes.
11th-Oct-2006 02:06 pm (UTC)
jfargo
The North Korea crisis was caused by people not wearing shoes while they cleaned their houses. No seriously, do the research!

Shoes!
11th-Oct-2006 02:49 pm (UTC)
texmorgan
People in North Korea dream of having shoes. Besides aren't nuclear weapons more important than feeding the third of your country that is starving.
12th-Oct-2006 12:43 am (UTC)
phantom_wolfboy
Now they can have shoes that can blow up entire countries! And with nuclear power they can irradiate the food that they don't have, making it safe to eat if they ever get it!
11th-Oct-2006 02:57 pm (UTC)
anotherjen
I only know of FlyLady secondhand. I have that strange combination of chronic fatigue syndrome/fibro with a love of cleaning and organizing. My feeling is that organizing leads to simplifying, which leads to economy of time and exertion. And it has in my case. That being said, I do sometimes use up all my spoons on some big cleaning/organizing project, and therefore have diminishing returns. I think the key is everything in moderation.
11th-Oct-2006 03:13 pm (UTC)
kennycelican
You know, there is at least one good point to this, and you may be getting a valuable service other than the one intended -

FlyLady doesn't care.

All of us build up a certain amount of emotional ickiness through a given day. Anyone dealing with medical problems, whether transient or permanent, builds that ickiness up faster. Every so often, it needs to be let out, much like carbon dioxide.

FlyLady doesn't care. If you say 'fuck you, Flylady!', she just goes imperturbably on her way, and you've vented out some of that nastiness.

Before anyone says anything, I know you can get into bad habits this way, but you can get into equally bad habits (potentially worse ones) by bottling everything up.

At the same time, FlyLady for fibro sounds like it might have quite the receptive audience...
11th-Oct-2006 03:14 pm (UTC)
pbristow
I long ago made my own version of FlyLady, using a nifty, inexpensive and lightweight (hyeah, right!) tool called Microsoft Outlook to set up reminders for things that pop up daily, weekly, or whenever. The advantage is that you can customise the schedule of prompts exactly to your needs...

I usually tell Outlook to sod off too. =:o}
11th-Oct-2006 04:53 pm (UTC)
siliconshaman
Hmm.. I'm pretty sure you can set up emails to auto-send to yourself... so save a buncha hers, the remail them to yourself on your own schedule.

Mind you, somebody should write a program that'll randomly pop up a saying like that, and include a frequency dial for how often you want it... and then have a great big red FUCK OFF button!
11th-Oct-2006 08:26 pm (UTC)
hookncrook
I tell FlyLady to fuck off all the time...if she actually had sense she'd realize just filtering through her emails takes 2 hours a day!
11th-Oct-2006 11:16 pm (UTC)
phinnia
That (and the testimonals, some of which make my soul itch in their treacly grammarlessness) was the single biggest reason I quit Flylady. :-D
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