Weekly Flylady Thread 29th December 2025

Valli

Welcome to the weekly Flylady Thread.

Welcome to the last thread of 2025.  We often see new flyers (gents welcome!) around this time of year so please don't worry if you feel you cannot keep up.  Similarly if your house has been neglected it won't be turned around in a day - but if you stay you will get into some good habits which do help!  Please note we are NOT control freaks with perfect homes but people with busy lives and better things to do who mutually encourageand support each other.  Housework, while easier because we have machines, is harder because homes are busy places.  Happy flying.

What is FLYLADY? Well, it's our version of the US flylady idea - but we work on the principle that housework is not fun, it's boring, can be time-consuming, is often thankless but, unfortunately, necessary. It's here on Old Style to provide the support we all need and to make the whole task easier and quicker. We also accept that, sometimes, life just gets on top of us and we can't keep up, maybe because we're time-poor, not in the best of health and/or we have littlies who need us. We are definitely NOT control freaks aiming for perfection and utterly spotless show-homes.

You're more than welcome to join us in the everlasting battle against dust, grime and gibble. The aim of our thread is to make those onerous tasks less daunting, and to support each other - and to make time for the finer things in life!
Please do remember we have to abide by MSE rules; each post should, ideally, include some mention of flying.
Thank you Natty for last week's thread. 

Please follow the forum rules on this thread as Flylady has been here a LONG time and is a fabulous support and resource for lots of us. All posts should have some Flylady-related content! (i.e. it should be on-topic)
The idea is that even if you are really busy you don't need to fall off the wagon!
Every room comes back around next week so please don’t stress about catching up
These lists are only suggestions and not a must do list; you are more than welcome to post and follow your own lists.
Also adding a declutter mission each day will help to gradually clear the clutter and make flying easier.
A few of the basics before we start the week -

Hotspots are areas where if one thing gets put there, loads of other things follow!
Daily routines are anything you need to do on a daily basis like washing, swish and swipe kitchen and bathroom, ironing, making beds, vacuuming high traffic areas, making meals etc.
Night-time routines are all things which make getting ready in the morning easier, preparing clothes for the next day, making lunches, swish & swipes of the kitchen and tidying the living room before you go to bed plus personals like shower/brush teeth etc.
Fling Boogie - stick on some loud music, grab a bin bag and whiz around the house finding items that can go out with the rubbish, recycling, for charity shop, basically anything that will stop it cluttering your home.
Swish and swipe/S&S means have a quick wipe over an area such as a sink or toilet to prevent the build up of dirt. This is usually done on a daily basis

HHE/HHC/HHI Half Hour exercise/challenge/ironing ... run around for 30 minutes to the Benny Hill music frantically cleaning exercising or ironing.. .other music may be used if you prefer!
WM ~ Washing machine
TD ~ Tumble dryer
SC ~ Slowcooker
BM ~ Breadmaker
DW ~ Dishwasher
SOAADFA ~ Sit on 'bottom' and do 'nothing'
KH/XH/FW ~ Ex-husband and other not so polite versions
DH/DD/DS/DW/DP ~ Dear husband/daughter/son/wife/partner/whatever
OH/SO ~ Other half/significant other
NN ~ nice neighbour
Toxic (friend/mother/sister/whoever) ~ person in your life that seems to exist to make your life miserable
AF ~ Aunt Flo 'time of the month'.. nothing to do with flying but it comes up often.
ETA ~ Edited to add
OOD - out of date
Gibble ~ miscellaneous crap that appears forever homeless
Dot-to-dot ~ pick a small area (not a whole room) like a chair/coffee/table/shelf/worktop or wherever- that’s your first 'dot' - totally clear it - clean it - and only put back what should be there - deal with what you have removed (not just move it somewhere else) then if you have time move on and do the same to another 'dot' -the idea is just like a dot to dot puzzle, you aim to join up all the dots and have a tidy room. The trick is to keep each dot tidy until you get them all joined up! All credit to former Flylady AnW's Mum for this one
RoD ~ Room of Doom, the one room that feels like it is a permanent pit and cannot be used to its potential!
MAD half hour
- Mad is the abbreviation for Make A Difference.
The idea is that you have a Forth bridge (ie never-ending - or just huge) task but that you work on it in half-hour bursts. This way you know you ARE stopping, and that you won't get it finished but you will make a difference - so it might be clearing out - the garage or shed, or clothes sorting, or weeding - you get the picture - but rather than keep going until you've lost the will to live you do half an hour...but, eventually those half hours will get the job done!
Frog (or other amphibian) ~ google 'eat that frog'
Spoons ~ google 'but you don't look sick' and/or 'The Spoon Theory'.

Mr S/A/T/M/L/Al - supermarkets Sainsburys, Asda, Tesco, Morrisons, Lidl, Aldi. You get the picture!!

Click here to read Toots wonderful welcome guide

Monday

Kitchen/Dining room

Level 1

Clear sides and wipe down - wipe small appliances
Replace what lives there, wiping as you go
Empty bin and clean it out too
Wipe sill, sockets, door handles and switches
Clear and clean sink and accessories - don't forget those out-of-sight places - under plugs and under draining racks
Clean/polish table - wipe mats/change cloth
Check fruit and wash bowl
Throw away your manky dish cloth or sponge and replace with a new one!

Level 2

Wipe down all cupboard and drawer fronts, not forgetting handles and tops and bottom as well as fronts!
Clean hob
Clean microwave
Sort fridge and wipe seals; weave stuff that needs using up into your meal plan.  Make sure Christmas leftovers don't outstay their welcome!
Dust dining area/room
Descale kettle if needed
Clear WM , TD and DW filters

Level 3

Clean windows and sills
Sweep/mop/vacuum floor as appropriate
Put out clean handtowel and teatowels

Extras

S&S bathroom
Binbag dance
Make sure your banking/month end spreadsheets/budgets are up to date
Make sure you have birthday cards (etc) to hand for January - and stamps - we do NOT want to get caught out by bad weather!
Dig out your TOOTS list - update and prioritise
Check smoke alarms and CO monitors

Tuesday Bathrooms, cloak rooms and en suites

Level 1
Open window
Remove towels and facecloths and fling in WM
Scrub Loo inside and out, slop  bleach or descaler down afterwards

Level 2
Clean out baths and/or showers
De-fuzz plugholes
Clean shower heads and hoses
Clean handbasins
Wipe plugs - especially underneath!

Level 3
sweep and mop or vacuum floor as appropriate
clean windows
polish mirrors
dust and polish where necessary

Extras

HHI
S&S kitchen

Wednesday - New Year's Eve

Pick what you want to or need to do -

Open windows to let in fresh air even if only for 5 minutes
S&S kitchen
S&S bathroom

10 minute tidy in any/all rooms - 

Empty any bins 
Straighten chairs and cushions etc
Wipe coffee table and straighten
Empty ashtrays
Sort flowers
Plump cushions
Make beds
Run vacuum round high traffic areas - delegate this job if you can to one person who can go from room to room

Friday - finally back to normality.

This is a rehash of the last list of 2025 with a coupole of tweaks

Open windows to let in fresh air even if only for 5 minutes
S&S kitchen
S&S bathroom

10 minute tidy in any/all rooms - 

Empty any bins 
Straighten chairs and cushions etc
Wipe coffee table and straighten
Empty ashtrays
Sort flowers
Plump cushions
Make beds
Run vacuum round high traffic areas - delegate this job if you can to one person who can go from room to room
HHI - try to get on top of the laundry as poor drying weather looms
For those of you with small people - find book bags, kits, water bottles etc and ensure they are ready for Monday (or whatever day they go back).  If your small people are a bit older make sure they know their school/college timetable and have everything they need.

EMERGENCY PREP

make sure you can survive if the weather is bad and things fail...

Have some longlife milk on standby 
Make sure you have a torch, candles, matches and a fully-charged powerbank

Ensure you know people's phone numbers - write the important ones down
And get ready for those January birthdays!

YORKSHIRELASS

I am here full of good intentions although a tad confused about what day it is.  We are meeting family in the pub later on, not sure how that will work out as there will be a lot of us and the pub isn't huge, and likely to be busy.  It will be nice to see everyone though.

We have reheated some curry for lunch as we are going out at 4pm.  I have shuffled washing around on the airer, run the DW and wiped something sticky off the kitchen cupboard door.  That's about it so far for today.

My book and the sofa calls for now.  I may fly a little later on. 

Honey_Bear

YORKSHIRELASS said:

I am here full of good intentions although a tad confused about what day it is.  

^^^ Wot she said.  I didn't realise yesterday was Saturday until I read it on here.  I'm less confused today but still dawdling about at the back, not even trying to keep up.  

Fayolle

Honey_Bear said:

YORKSHIRELASS said:

I am here full of good intentions although a tad confused about what day it is.  

^^^ Wot she said.  I didn't realise yesterday was Saturday until I read it on here.  I'm less confused today but still dawdling about at the back, not even trying to keep up.  

^^what they both said 🤣  - no idea of the day of the week (thank you Round for the reminder😉) and definitely a dawdler at the back with HB.
The chicken carcass has been turned into a broth, with some lentils in for good measure and to hint at healthy eating. We had a lovely evening with friends yesterday, but excesses might have been imbibed in some quarters. Let’s just say that I was first up this morning…😇. Leftover cooked veg became fritter thingumajigs for lunch, the fridge is now breathing again. This afternoon I have been looking up how to visibly mend a rather large hole that has appeared in my comfy scruffy jeans. I may have gone down various rabbit holes in the process.
Notebook sorted out for Round. If you duck, I am about to fling it northwards.

kazmeister

Thanks for the list Valli

Painkillers holding the migraine at bay.
Have S/S kitchen 
swept all floors downstairs as hoover hadn’t charged
Cooked tomorrow’s dinner as the meat needed to be cooked 
Spent far too long cleaning all my make up brushes. I need a system of keeping the clean from the used/in use but I don’t have pots big enough as they are currently spread across 3
Read the first chapter of Mel Robbins book Let Me, which will be an interesting read. Have already learned the 5 second rule, if you have an action thought, count down from 5 and do it before your brain comes up with reasons not to starting with getting out of bed when the alarm goes off. Will have to see how that goes.
Relocated the remainder of the Christmas pressies and written up the white board on the fridge with this weeks activities
Reworked the finances on the bathroom project, by overpaying without increasing our budget over what the mortgage was, we can reduce from 3 years to 20 months so need to set that up.

Finances still to be balanced and reworked so am going to
1 find my phone
2 start tonight’s dinner
3 Finances after dinner

Going to do it 54321

MadamMim2013

Thanks for the new list @Valli ☺️

Not done much today as it’s my DS2’s birthday, he’s now gone out with friends for a while 🥳
Have been looking at our budget yet got sidetracked by other stuffs & making a birthday cheesecake 🤣

Will do my best to get lots done on the list tomorrow as want to get the house back into shape after all the festivities, contemplating putting the decorations away too.. 🤔 

ionafan

Thank you for starting the new thread, Valli.  I'm in as far as possible/necessary x

I think everyone round here is confused as to the day of the week.  I was OK this morning and got to church on time, but this afternoon DH should have gone to wargaming but didn't (the room booking was cancelled as the Con Club caretaker is on holiday) and I couldn't get my head round that.  I've also got it firmly in my head that all my family are getting together on Thursday, whereas it's actually happening on Friday of this week (2nd Jan). Dooooooooohhhh!!!

Hope you all have a good week, whatever you've got planned xxx

YORKSHIRELASS

Morning all 

My alarm went off at 5.50am as usual and I was wide awake so got up even though I had some wine last night and feel a little ropey.  DW on, ironing done, breakfast eaten, spreadsheets updated.  Debts are £7500 down on a year ago, I was hoping for more but 2026 is a new start (and we replaced DHs car this year which we weren't expecting). 

DS1 messaged last night and asked if I wanted to go for a walk this morning, he said he wanted to go early but I suspect he is still asleep (I saw him briefly in the pub last night).  DS is a serious hiker and walks very fast so it will burn off some calories if we do get out.

We need to get some food in for New Year if there is anything in the shops.  I also want to try to get a birthday cake for DS2 for Friday.

Monday everyone, in case you were wondering!  Have a good day xx

roundtuit

Morning all xx 

This is your friendly dayoftheweek reminder 😉 It's Monday today. I think 🤔 

I slept past 5am yayyyy. I'm up, made my bed, taken my meds, turned over the calendars, changed Joey's seed and water, completed Strands with no hints, completed Wordle in five, completed Connections with no lives lost, and I'm supping my first brew. 

WOOT Valli and Level 3 no less 😇 

Have a good day.
Rxx

Fayolle

Monday. Monday. Monday. Really? When I got the day of the week reminder I set the towels swishing. It seems only yesterday I last did them but obviously was a week ago, somehow. Dw is running. Houseplants watered (not sure that was on list but it’s done now). Odd bits of gibble put away. Chickpeas that were set to soaking last night have been cooked. Shopping delivery in about an hour. The new calendar that DD handpainted for me 😍 has been filled with appointments and birthdays, so now I have no excuse about getting caught out in January - finally I am on list 🤣. To do - finish repairing my jeans, make a cake for a black forest gateau that I have promised DD tomorrow. 

babs

I came back in a few weeks ago then Christmas got in the way so now back for the long haul and intended to fly in 2026. I am not following the set list till I have fully decluttered and I am following a set decluttering routine till I am there and forming good habits. 

First mission is to get every bit of washing done in the house that has piled up since Xmas, put it away (no decluttering this stage) and then ensure my daily "to do list" includes a daily laundry check... does it need washing? If so wash and put it away immediately. 

If I get this done today thats a big accomplicement!