Organizing My Home.

So who hasn't heard of Fly Lady? I think everyone and their mom has probably visited the website and I must admit that I was even a subscriber! But amidst the never ending email reminders, I decided to fly the coop and unsubscribe. In theory, Fly Lady's system is wonderful. But for me, it just doesn't work. Their system is great; however, I'm just not into the whole constant email reminders and such.

This week has been my trial run for my new schedule. The kids are not completely following it, as I'm waiting yet another week to fully start school with them, but I'm trying to adhere to the scheduled activities as much as possible (wake-up time, snacks, math, etc.). I must say that I'm loving the extra 2 hours I get in the morning to do chores or get on the Internet. I'm not one to wake up early, but this is definitely worth the effort!

Seeing that I'm sticking to my schedule, I'm finding that I have better control of my house. We're doing things at assigned times and that is helping me stay on top of household duties. So long to frenzied cleaning hours!!! Now I actually have time to clean throughout the day, which means that the work doesn't pile up on me; therefore, I get to skip out on trying to clean the whole house in an hour. It's just working out!

But getting back to Fly Lady...I really liked the thought of making zones in your home and dedicating a week to focus on a particular zone. So this week I will be organizing my home into work zones and assigning days and weeks to each zone. It will then all go into my household notebook. Here are the zones to my house.

Zone 1
Outside entry
Foyer
Hallway
Hallway bathroom

Zone 2
Living Room
Laundry Room

Zone 3
Kitchen
School Room

Zone 4
Master Bedroom
Master Bath

Zone 5
Kids Bedroom
Baby Bedroom
Hall Bathroom
Hall Area (Computer station)

Since the kids are responsible for their things, they are in charge of their own room. They are also in charge of cleaning up the playroom, taking down their dirty laundry, and doing small chores around the house. All the trash in the upstairs areas are also their responsibility to take downstairs or outside (this is usually done by Marco, although Isabella likes to help).

Lightening my workload is essential. I've come to realize that every member of the family has to have certain cleaning responsibilities. This is especially true as a homeschooling family. I don't have the same time as a mom who sends her kids off to school for the day, so its important that everyone does their share.