Give me direction!
June 23, 2010 4:13 PM   Subscribe

Do you know of an email subscription and/or website that is like FlyLady used to be? Which is to say, I want someone to email me lists of household chores to do on any given day, but without all the fluff.

3 or 4 years ago, I really liked the email subscription I had to FlyLady. I used to enjoy getting emailed a daily list of things to do, with the random immediate task emails (like, go clean out your car for 15 minutes type of thing). Basically, it's just easier for me to deal with cleaning my house if someone else thinks about and tells me what to do.

But in the last year or so FlyLady has just turned into crap. The emails I get now are pages long testimonials/advertisements/things unrelated to household chores (diet/wardrobe/child rearing/menu planning/etc advice). I don't want to read all that stuff. I just want it to be like it used to be: a section of the house was tackled each week, and daily lists corresponding to that section were mailed out.

Anyone know of anything like this?
posted by sickinthehead to Home & Garden (13 answers total) 35 users marked this as a favorite
 
ListBean has some checklists related to cleaning and organizing. I just found it today and so don't know its full capabilities, so I'm not sure if the site will send automated emails, but it seems to me you could customize the lists to help you stay on track.
posted by katie at 4:33 PM on June 23, 2010


Response by poster: I appreciate the answer. I know of a few good sites that have customizable/interesting lists. My husband and I have even made our own list and tacked it on the fridge. For some reason, this doesn't do it for me. Getting the email is so much easier. Especially when sometimes there's a surprise included.
posted by sickinthehead at 4:37 PM on June 23, 2010


The flylady LJ community had a similar question recently. http://community.livejournal.com/flylady/955722.html
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 4:41 PM on June 23, 2010


To be honest, unless you do a homebrew solution you probably won't find a site like this that doesn't have some form of ads (unless it is subscription based). They are providing a service and want to monetize it (and I can't really blame them).

If either of you has some coding savvy, you could make a program that would email you a random task from a list of tasks you could develop ahead of time.

An offline way of doing this would be to write a bunch of tasks on note cards and put them in a hat or box. Set calendar email reminders to have you to pull out a card and then do it.
posted by Elminster24 at 5:00 PM on June 23, 2010


Best answer: Sounds like Chorebuster could be of use to you.
posted by arianell at 5:05 PM on June 23, 2010 [3 favorites]


I use Menus for Moms for my weekly dinner planning, and they also have an email that sends out a daily cleaning task. Example
Daily reminder for Monday, Jun. 21, 2010
This week's area is the Master Bedroom (including closet & bathroom) & Kids' Rooms.

If you have not decluttered this area, instead of completing today's task, spend 15 minutes decluttering the current area only.
If you have already decluttered, your goal today is to vacuum under and behind furniture in the current area for 15 minutes only. You will probably not finish all of this task, just do as much as you can in that time then quit.

Remember, you are only working in the Master Bedroom (including closet & bathroom) & Kids' Rooms. Limit your time to 15 minutes for this task and stick to it - set a timer if you have to! When you are done, take a moment to look around and appreciate your efforts.

If you do not have a daily routine in place, this is a good time to set one up.

Be well!

posted by saffry at 5:50 PM on June 23, 2010 [1 favorite]


Flylady really really helped me to de-clutter my apartment, but the overwhelming amount of emails caused me to unsubscribe. Now I kind of need it again, so I signed up for the "digest." It's one email once a week that tells you all the tasks for the week. It does send out a specific one every day, but you can just delete those because you've already got an email that contains all of them.
posted by la petite marie at 7:12 PM on June 23, 2010


Kelly is the one that sends out the daily emails, and she titles them all "flight plan for ". You could do an email filter.
posted by Monday at 11:55 PM on June 23, 2010


If you want a more generalized solution, and you want to use your own list, Toodledo will send you a daily 'hotlist' email with the tasks that are due soon, or of high enough priority. You can also schedule recurring tasks that will make that hotlist on a regular basis... You will have to check them off when you are done, though, or they will keep showing up. It's free plan should have enough functionality for what you need, I think.
posted by Philbo at 7:38 AM on June 24, 2010


You'd be the one doing the set up, but you can do this with Google Calendar--put events on a recurring schedule and have Gmail email you said things.
posted by ifjuly at 7:40 AM on June 24, 2010


I've made a google calendar for chores for the day. It's pretty comprensive. I've shared it here. It doesn't include things you'd do everyday, like dishes, laundry, or take out the trash.
posted by Brent Parker at 9:57 AM on June 24, 2010 [2 favorites]


House Honch sends you one email a day with concise missions to complete. HabitHacker.com is an alternative spin on developing habits for health, chores and creativity.
posted by slightlybewildered at 8:37 PM on April 17, 2011


(House Honcho, rather)
posted by slightlybewildered at 8:38 PM on April 17, 2011


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