Top Ten Countdown: Number Three

In my Top Ten Things I’ve Learned in 365 Days with Flylady, number three is:

My Flylady routines are not–SHOULD NOT–be the focus of my life. My Flylady routines provide the tools to get things done so I can focus on what is really important to me.

I learned early, early on in my Flylady journey that I abhor de-cluttering. I mean, I really, really, really dislike it. So, after I had pretty much established every other routine in my day (well, maybe except completing every Zone Mission), and I started to focus on adding daily de-cluttering, I kind of hit a wall. Up until then, I was skipping along, being amazed at how much following Flylady’s advice changed our lives as far as eliminating CHAOS, guilt and frustration.

But when I started having to force myself to de-clutter as well as do all of my other Flylady chores, I felt myself getting upset and angry. Naturally, I began to analyze the situation. And what I found was that I had been focusing on doing my Flylady routines as the main part of my day. Yes, I was homeschooling and parenting, as usual. But as for anything beyond that, I was focusing on Flylady. I was counting my days as “successful” based on if I had completed my Flylady routine. I would walk around the house and mentally check off that I had completed certain Flylady tasks.

My dislike of de-cluttering and my inability to actually force myself to do in on a regular, daily basis brought out the fact that I was giving all of my energy to doing stuff I didn’t LIKE to do, that drained my energy. It was kind of like de-cluttering was the straw that broke this camel’s back. But that was when I realized that I was out of balance.

I’ve talked a lot about balance in this blog. When I am focusing on my Flylady routine, when it is taking all of my mental and physical energy, I am out of balance. When I started realizing that my focus should be on OTHER things that re-energize me and inherently bring me joy, and that Flylady routines were only there to provide a way to get things done so I could focus on the other things, I realized a healthy balance.

I wonder if this phenomena happens to other Flybabies as they go through their Flylady journey….

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