Posted in FLYING and HGP
After being a FlyBaby for almost 8 years, I think I have finally figured out why Zoning hasn't worked for me. Now don't get me wrong, FlyLady has a good plan and I think that if you are as lost as we SHE's tend to get, then doing ANY kind of plan is gonna help. But I just had an epiphany as to why Zoning wasn't working for me so I thought I would share.
1st-- Zoning doesn't work if you have clutter. I knew that but somehow I just thought I could skip that step. It is SOOOOO much easier to dust a shelf if you have a shelf that isn't stacked to the ceiling with books and such --- ask me how I know that one! So with that in mind, you really can't do Zone work until you elimate the clutter and you shouldn't even really try. Do 27 fling boogies until you can find a Zone.
2nd--- FlyLady's zoning plan didn't fit MY house or MY plan. I would get sooooo frustrated because I personally don't need to "puppy mop" my floors daily but I had Mt. Washmore competing with Mt. Everest. It seemed like I "just" wiped down my counters (because a child had spilt juice) but my microwave was starting to smell from the cooked on gunk AND FlyLady never cleaned my schoolroom!!
So here is what I did:
1st - I listed all the areas of MY house INCLUDING THE CLOSETS and I plugged those areas into FlyLadies general Zone plan:
Zone 1: Entrance, porch & dining room (added front coat closet & dining room hutch)
Zone 2: Kitchen (added Pantry closet, freezer and refrigerator)
Zone 3: Bathroom & extra room (added Laundry room, utility closet, & linen closet)
Zone 4: Master Bedroom (added master bath and master closet)
Zone 5: Living Room (rotated boys bedrooms and their closets)
2nd -- After doing this I realized that this is a monthly plan but that Zone 1 doesn't need to be done on such an often basis soooooo I made Zone 2 my tasks to do on the 1st week of every month, Zone 3 on the 2nd week and so on. Zone 1 will only be done on the months that have 5 weeks. (I hope that wasn't confusing). So my monthly zones look like this:
Week 1: Zone 2 - Kitchen, pantry, fridge & freezer
Week 2: Zone 3 - Main bath area & Laundry room, linen and utility closet
Week 3: Zone 4 - Master Bedroom, bath and closet
Week 4: Zone 5 - Livingroom and rotating bedrooms
Week 5: Zone 1 - Porch, entrance, front closet, dining area
3rd -- Then I took each room and divided up the tasks that need to be done in a table To give you an idea here is a portion of the form I created:
KITCHEN
|
DAILY |
WEEKLY |
MONTHLY |
BI-ANNUALLY |
YEARLY |
FUTURE |
|
shine sink |
|
|
|
|
|
|
SMILE! |
|
|
|
|
|
Daily Chores are just a given-- shine sink, make bed....
Weekly chores become your Weekly Home Blessing
Monthly chores are you Zone work for the week you are in that room/area.
Bi-Annually & Yearly chores are what you could do during FlyLadies Fling Boogies or HGP Spring & Fall cleanup times. I also added Garage Boogies to my yearly chores with front and backyard work. Those will need special times of the year to be done but when it comes time to work all, that has to be done is listed on this.
Future is a list of things you need $ for and to plan for; almost like a Honey Do List (this list is quite helpful for me in that I get overwhelmed thinking about all the things that NEED to be done but have to wait. By putting these "waiting" chores on the list, I can focus on what has to be done instead of seeing all the things that can't be done--- it helps to not discourage me.)
The idea is to make it work for YOU, your house and your situation.
Now with this plan I quickly realized that I have too many bedrooms. How I will solve that for the time being is to rotate those rooms so at least every 3rd month those rooms are getting full attention but my future plan is to divide up the tasks that need to be done in each room and then give those jobs to the children living in those rooms. So they too will have a Flying Flinging Zone planner on how to clear out and clean their own rooms and hopefully I won't have much to do in those.
The wonderful thing about starting this Master Flying Planner is that everyone can just check off a task. If the week is up and the Zone isn't complete then there are no worries because the next month you just start crossing off where you left off and nothing gets neglicted. When everything is checked off you start over.
I'm sorry if this all seemed obvious to some of you but ZONING was never that obvious to me so I hope this helped someone.
© Copyright 2008 Jacque Ward http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/wacque/
