First a comment about Flylady. When I started with FL, there was none of the bat-shit crazy stuff she spouts today. She never mentioned religion per se or anything remotely conspiracy-related. Of course, this was back in 2010 or so and things weren’t quite as crazy as they are now. So if you happen to go to her channel be ready to see a wall of weird crosses behind her etc. I only go to the website which is now handled by someone else. I do that only to check in to what the zone is.

So without further ado, FL did change my life when I was overwhelmed with everything. Personally, when I see Youtubers like Minimal Mom, Shannon Torres, etc, I can see their need for some control in their lives, and decluttering and minimalism work for them. I felt the same.

By the time I was diagnosed with myeloma in 2005, I was heavy into collecting everything mid-century. I was doing craft fairs to sell stuff and always on the hunt for Life magazines, collectibles, etc. So after my diagnosis and subsequent year of treatment, everything came to a halt. Our small house was packed to the gills and messy. It was always clean but there was just too. much. stuff.

I think it was around 2010 that I stumbled upon FL. I wasn’t so much into minimalism at that time but FL’s plan included decluttering and getting rid of excess. I think the most valuable thing for me was her zone concept and cleaning your house by zones. I still do that today although it is modified to fit what I need. I would highly recommend the zone method as every 5 weeks you then deep clean the one zone. If your house is bigger with more bedrooms you would need to add some zones. So the zone concept really changed how I kept up with the house and cleaned.

In addition, her daily tasks really kept me focused. Daily tasks included clean/clear counters and surfaces, swish and swipe the bathroom, one load of laundry a day, sweep the kitchen floor and keep the sink clear of dishes. I implemented with the whole family, NO dishes in the sink at bedtime.

She is one of the original influencers who coined the 15-minute decluttering time. Basically, do what you can in 15 minutes, use a timer, and then when it’s up you’re done. That is how I started the great decluttering. So much stuff left our house and barn. I gave lots of the more valuable things to a friend who had a big house so it fit in well.

I haven’t missed a thing. I didn’t take pictures of all the stuff and I would recommend you do. It’s a great way to look back and go, oh yeah I remember that.

So, the biggest change was how I began to see our very small house. Since it is just 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom, we were always challenged with not enough space. My office area used to be my daughter’s room and my son had the small bedroom. In hindsight I would have done things differently but as said hindsight is always 20/20.

Now I see we have enough room since I got rid of anything that wasn’t serving a purpose or that I/we loved. Honestly, I’d love to get rid of more stuff, mainly furniture but each piece we own is functional. We have to sit somewhere:0

So I went from overwhelmed to organized. Maximalist to minimalist. Compared to die-hard minimalists, I still probably have too much stuff( Catherine Holm , anyone), but hey, it’s my definition of being minimal. Pretty much what you see is what I have. I have very little storage space, so… I mean I do have Christmas stuff, my vintage Halloween, a tiny bit of Easter/Spring but not things unknown in drawers.

All the areas of our small house work for us and I’m very glad that even after 14 years, we’re still trying to ”Pare down to the essence, but don’t remove the poetry” Leonard Koren.