Alternatives to FlyLady

March 9, 2016 5:02 AM

Do you know of anything that's like FlyLady but isn't FlyLady? As in, an app/service/website that gives you a daily schedule of cleaning and neatening your habitat so that you take baby steps from having a messy apartment to one that's hopefully less so?

Or, if you want to convince me to try FlyLady, you're welcome to try. I just didn't like the overall feel and the tone and the product placement.

posted by Busoni to Home & Garden (8 answers total)

Unfuck Your Habitat.
posted by chaiminda at 5:03 AM on March 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

Yes, seconding Unfuck Your Habitat. It is basically FlyLady for people who hate the tone of FlyLady.
posted by pie ninja at 5:16 AM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I like using the January cure from apartment therapy. I never do all the steps but I find it the one that works best. I didn't like flylady nor unfuck your habitat. However it has taken me years to go from near-hoarder to pretty decent.
posted by biggreenplant at 5:48 AM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've developed my own flylady-type system using the Wunderlist list-making app (which I found out about here). I have a list called "daily" and one called "weekly." Both include what I call "timed cleanings," where I just set a timer and clean something that needs attention. I'm gradually adding other tasks too, e.g., since my couch is always covered with cat hair, cleaning the couch with a roller is on the weekly list. I check those things as I do them, and when the day or week is over, I uncheck them all and start again. I have to make up my own rules, but I prefer that. You could probably apply any of the flylady ideas you to like to Wunderlist.
posted by FencingGal at 6:02 AM on March 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Besides Unfuck Your Habitat, there's an app called Home Routines (iOS only, at least at the moment, but there's also a web tool that you can use to do data entry and can also use for many but not all of the app functions.)

It's based heavily on the FlyLady methodology, without the stuff that drives a lot of people up the wall, and there are pre-populated lists of tasks for when you get that far, sorted into zones. (The web access makes editing these much less annoying.)

I (and a couple of other people I know) have also found that for the initial startup, getting the FlyLady book (out of the library, your favourite source of books, whatever) and working through that was less frustrating than the website.
posted by modernhypatia at 6:04 AM on March 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Have you heard of Jolie Kerr? She did Ask a Clean Person on the Hairpin, and then at DeadSpin. She's now writing at Esquire. Her book, My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag and Other Things You Can't Ask Martha is kind of what you are looking for. It's funny and practical. She also does a podcast.
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:27 AM on March 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Kim & Aggie's How Clean Is Your House book has some routines that finally made me start to make progress. I've only gotten partway through the daily routines because I lost the book, but even if that's all I do, it's a lot.

I started adding one new daily item per calendar month, and so far I:

1. air beds first thing in the morning
2. change dishcloths and teatowels daily
3. keep dishwasher loaded and unloaded
4. do hand-dishwashing every morning
5. clean kitchen surfaces first thing every morning (I should keep them clean, but the tel3mum never throws garbage away, never puts a dish in the dishwasher and doesn't always wipe up what she spills, so, picking my battles)
6. clean kitchen sink
7. 1 laundry
8. sweep kitchen floor (vacuum once weekly)
9. clean bathroom sink
10. clean loo
11. wipe down bathroom floor (it has those rough, matte, dirt-collecting tiles)
12. clean bathtub & shower after self

Every other day, change cat litter
Twice weekly, change hand towels and bath/shower towels

Weekly:
1. deeper clean of bathroom
2. change bedlinen (ideally twice a week in hot weather)

and stuff I added because it's hard to do these things during the week:
3. vacuum own bedroom floor if I haven't done it lately
4. test fire alarms
5. shredding
6. decluttering/organizing one specific area (last week I sorted all my necklaces)

You see what I mean, even if that's all I get done, that's a lot.
posted by tel3path at 8:39 AM on March 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I keep meaning to reactivate my account at habitca -- it's great for to do lists, weekly and daily tasks, etc. I mostly ignored the game aspects other than buying stuff for my avatar, but it worked well for me when I used it.
posted by lemniskate at 7:01 AM on March 10, 2016 [3 favorites]