GET DRESSED TO SHOES!

Recently I asked my group how they were doing with the ‘Nine Habits Each Day Every Day’ that are PART of the ‘Dance Till You FLY! mw (c) 2013 System that is influenced by Flylady along with my challenges and experiences.  You see, I live with Fibromyalgia 24/7.  I HAD to find a way to take care of my home the easiest way possible because I am in pain on a scale of 1-10 as a 9 ninety percent of the time.  I can’t have something that is difficult, rigid, redundant.  I need simple, streamlined and if I miss a habit here or there I don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.  I just keep going.  I have been doing the nines for three years now and I am so glad I came up with this.  Otherwise, I would not have made it and there would be no Marilyn’s Way.  I worked very hard to come up with nine simple habits that OVERLAP each other so by the end of the day I could feel like a success because I already had the next day lined up for me by doing the last three habits of the day.

I am a bit stumped why 80% of my group still isn’t doing this.  If they would practice it for one month, I just know they would see the difference in their home.  This is what December’s Event is about.  Practicing the Nines makes you a TEN!  Yet I still see many struggling with it.  If you would just do them in the order listed and and while you are in the bathroom getting dressed to shoes, there should be no excuse to ‘Swish & Swipe.’  What? You don’t have a bottle of cleaner like Windex and some paper towels in there?  Get some!  Is the toilet bowl brush in an unhandy place? Move it!  While you are still in the bathroom why not ask that question early in the day ‘What’s For Dinner?’ so you can make sure you have all of the ingredients and take meat out of the freezer.  That is three habits down, six more to go.

Next up is the three habits of the afternoon routine.You don’t even have to wait for the afternoon to start.  You can do these three habits after you have finished your morning routine.  I have done it many times. While you do your fourth habit of a ‘Load of Laundry’ and the machine is running, start the fifth habit, ‘Declutter Each Day.’  You can declutter just 15 minutes or up to the time it takes to wash and dry your clothes.  Then is a great time for a break.  Don’t go to the computer.  It won’t be restful.  Just sit down and do nothing for 15 minutes.  Then get up fold the clothes and put them away.  Next up is making ‘Dinner Early.’  Get the ingredients that need to be chopped, diced, and sliced ready for the main course.  Just have dinner early so you still have the energy to clean up the kitchen and ‘Shine Your Sink.’  Kitchen is now closed for the day.  Most likely there are some clothes you just washed, dried, folded and put away that you could wear the next day.  Take them along with what you have in your closet and lay them out or put on a clothes hanger.

The last thing to do is get your ‘Launch Pad Ready.’  That is whatever you are going to be doing as a project if you stay at home or the things you are taking with you if you work outside the home.  This is also another place for the kids to have their book bags ready to go.  Write a list of perishables like school lunch that will need to go as well.  Now your day is done for the most part.  This is the Foundation of the system Dance Till You FLY! mw (c) 2013.  There is plenty of wiggle room in there for the weekly habits and if you do them consistently they should only take you at the most 30 minutes except for DOO WOP ERRAND DAY.

Take a closer look at the ‘Nine Habits Each Day Every Day.’  See if you can’t get that ‘Aha’ Moment I did three years ago!  Of course none of this is possible if you don’t ‘Get Dressed To Shoes.’  I have 436 consecutive days where I took a picture of myself and wrote a mini blog.  Today I still get dressed to shoes.  If I didn’t my home would be right back the way it used to be, cluttered and uncomfortable.
Dance Till You FLY!
Marilyn