As Flylady says, “You cannot organize clutter. You can only get rid of it”, she is absolutely right. What I learned for myself is while I was in this decluttering process that took me over three years, my house continued to look upside down. I hadn’t yet grasped the importance of establishing some daily habits to keep some type of order in my home.

Everything changed when I decided in 2011 I was going to do Flylady’s monthly habits and build upon them. I wanted to see if her system could be done for real. January is ‘Shine You Sink’, February ‘Declutter 15 Minutes A Day’ March ‘Get Dressed To Shoes’. March was going to be a challenge. I was a ‘Pajama Junkie’. My fibromyalgia was winning in that department. I spent five years being very ill. I never knew how I was going to feel from day to day. March habit was going to be a challenge.

Day nine was an absolute struggle to get dressed to shoes. I was really concerned. How was I going to get through thirty one days of this if I am having trouble with day nine? That’s when I got the idea to take a ‘selfie’ and write a mini blog and put it on Flylady’s facebook page. Day 10 I started.

I was getting so much support from everyone in this journey. Yet when day nineteen came, I struggled to get dressed to shoes again but I made it. I continued this pattern of approximately every nine days it would be a struggle.

I started a facebook page called The Flylady Way where I gathered all of my daily selfies and mini blogs so if someone wanted to look at all of them they could. This also gave me incentive to keep going. I later created a facebook page named Marilyn’s Way To Organization For Home And Garden as some were getting myself and the real Flylady confused. Today the one page has changed to Marilyn’s Flylady Way.

The daily selfies and mini blogs continued for 436 consecutive days of publishing and I continue to get dressed to shoes. I learned the importance of consistency. If you keep going you’ll get there. Consistency is the key to success.

I continued to follow Flylady. I did however find it difficult to do everything that she asks of us because of my limitations of fibromyalgia and that I am ADD. I wanted to feel like I did my best each day.

I set out in finding three habits for each of the three routines of the day that would be done daily and non negotiable. Even though most of the habits I didn’t like, I knew they were necessary. I wanted to cover three areas. They are yourself as an individual, your family whether it is children or pets, and your home. After trying different ones I came up with the following nine habits.