No flies on her
A flyfishing mother is turning people worldwide on to the secrets of domestic cleanliness,
Just as Zen philosophers preach that a journey of one thousand miles starts with a single step, a US self-help guru is teaching hundreds of thousands of women that a clutter-free house starts with a shiny sink.
Welcome to the world of
Flylady.net, a motivational website that is helping busy working women and mothers worldwide regain control of their homes and their lives.
"Are YOU living in CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome)?" declares Flylady's homepage. "Do you feel overwhelmed, overextended, and overdrawn? Hopeless and you don't know where to start? Don't worry friend, we've been there, too."
More than 266,000 people in 65 countries have joined the cult of Flylady and let her cast out their housework demons.
Flylady is Marla Cilley, 49, from Brevard in North Carolina - her name comes from her love of flyfishing. This busy working mother founded Flylady in December 1999 in response to requests from friends eager to know the secret of her domestic routines.
"Ten people signed up the first day, 15 people the next, and it just got bigger and bigger," she chuckles comfortingly down the phone.
Her website dispenses "housecleaning and organising tips with homespun humour, and daily musings about life and love". Users who sign up to Flylady are sent up to 20 "reminder" emails a day to encourage them to stay on track with their household cleaning programme.
They can also join support groups in their local areas to share tips, and Flylady's advice has been published as a book for those who prefer a low-tech introduction to cleaning.
The relentlessly upbeat advice offers new converts - known as flybabies - simple practical routines, including setting a timer and spending just 15 minutes a day decluttering. But the first and most important step on the journey to a tidy home is a shiny sink.
"Many of you can't understand why I want you to empty your sink of your dirty dishes and clean and shine it," states Flylady's website. "It is so simple. I want you to have a sense of accomplishment .... When you get up the next morning, your sink will greet you and a smile will come across your lovely face."
But why the sink? "That's where I started," says Marla. "I picked just one habit - cleaning my sink seemed like the best one - and pretty soon, my whole kitchen got cleaned."
The success of Flylady, according to her fans, is that you begin by making small changes to your routine.
Flybaby Michelle South, 33, who lives in Penn, Buckinghamshire, with her husband, Malcolm, and two young sons, became a convert to the Flylady's words of wisdom in July.
"Every day there is an email from Flylady telling you to do something like sort out the Tupperware or clean round the bathroom taps with a toothbrush. Stuff you would never do.
"I've never been a very organised person and I was living in a state of chaos. With two children I found I did not have enough time to keep the house tidy. Once I started with Flylady, I was hooked. I began by cleaning the sink and found it just worked."
The discipline and organisation that comes with Flylady's cleaning routine has also helped Michelle to almost halve the weekly shopping bill to £70 by throwing away less food. And she finds that the new cleaning routine frees up more time at the weekend to spend with her family.
While Flylady's advice attracts legions of fans - Marla claims she gets 10,000 thank-you letters every week - not everyone is convinced by her approach to creating domestic bliss.
"I would have preferred some organising tips that addressed concerns for working women. It seems all the women who are Flybabies have DHs [Flylady shorthand meaning 'dear husband']," writes Linda Painchaud-Steinman on an Amazon.com page reviewing the Flylady book.
"The thing that bothered me most was the constant reminder of your own accountability in keeping your house clean, the reminder that what you're doing is a "blessing" to the family," writes another disgruntled Flybaby.
Some complain that she persistently fails to mention asking husbands or children to take a role in keeping the home tidy.
"I found it insulting to imply that your family may be incapable of helping you so you should just simply take on their duties yourself," says one ex-Flybaby on a support group website.
But Marla says her website is not just aimed at working women or stay-at-home mums with lazy husbands.
"Flylady appeals to anyone who has a home. We have users from every economic strata and their ages range from teenagers to 85 years old. Single dads use our site."
And she claims a clean house could be the key to finding the real you.
"When you get your home in order, you really find out what you want to be when you grow up," she says. "If I hadn't gotten my home in order, I wouldn't be who I am today. Who am I? I am Flylady."
Flylady's cleaning tips
The 27-Fling Boogie
Take a rubbish bag and walk through your home and throw away 27 items. Rule of thumb: if you have two of any item and you only need one, get rid of the least desirable. Do not stop until you have collected all 27 items. Then close the bag and throw it away without looking into it. Flylady suggests singing the song "Please Release Me, Let Me Go" while performing your "boogie".
Shiny Sink 101
Empty the sink and fill it with hot water and add a cup of household bleach. Let it sit for an hour. Then empty the water and rinse the sink. Use cleanser to scrub the sink then rinse again. Take a sharp edge and clean around the rim of the sink, just like you would clean dirt out from under your fingernails, then clean the taps with an old toothbrush or dental floss. Finally, give the sink a shine by applying window cleaner.
Hot Spot Fire Drill
A hot spot is an area that, when left unattended, will gradually take over. When you walk into a room, the hot spot is the first thing you see. Nip this in the bud by getting rid of piles of clutter to find the surface underneath.
A swish and a swipe
This is a one-minute daily maintenance routine to keep your bathroom tidy. Take window cleaner and a rag or a piece of kitchen paper and wipe the mirror, taps, sink and counter. Put toilet cleaner on your toilet brush and swish it around the toilet and, using the rag or paper, wipe off the seat, rim, sides and floor before throwing it away.
guardian
