Organize and Clean Your Home with a Flylady Home Control Journal

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In this post, I'll share with you my Flylady Home Control Journal and FREE printables you can have to make your own binder as well. The FlyLady system is what I've been using to declutter my home and mind, keep my home cleaned regularly, and take care of myself! I think every homemaker can benefit from the Flylady system.

Organize and Declutter your home with a FlyLady Home Control Journal - free printable

What is the FlyLady System?

To put it very simply it's a system to help you manage your home and life to reduce stress and chaos. It is a way of life! It helps you to be able to:

  • Clean your home systematically, consistently and easily.
  • Reduce mental clutter and stress by giving you a plan and a focus.
  • Declutter your home by creating a habit of decluttering and organizing.
  • Anchor your life with routines and healthy habits so you can be the homemaker and mother you truly want to be.

It's all based on the book by Marla Cilley, Sink Reflections, which I highly recommend buying to get a complete, in-depth overview of the system. It was an easy and enjoyable read for me. I teared up quite a few times while reading it because she truly understands what it's like to manage a home while being a mom. She speaks to our spirits, to our struggles, and offers easy and simple solutions to make our lives much better! She also has a website, FlyLady.net, if you'd like to check that out.

What's a FlyLady Home Control Journal?

A FlyLady Home Control Journal, or Home Management binder as I like to call it, is your home management hub. It helps to keep your life organized and your mind decluttered. It gives you a way to organize your routines, to-do lists, menu plan, cleaning routines and so much more!

Free FlyLady Home Control Journal Printable!

I'm providing my home journal printables for you for FREE if you join my email list at the bottom of this post! I'll send you one motivational and encouraging email a week.

Customize It to Fit YOUR Home and Lifestyle

Now my printables are very bare bones – just the basics. And I do that on purpose so you can customize your journal to fit your house and lifestyle. All of our control journals will be different. So these printables will give you a starting point so you don't have to create it from scratch.

Keep It Simple – This is Not About Perfection

The idea here, and Marla writes about this in her book, is not to have a perfect journal but to have a starting place, a launch pad to keep you organized and support your journey to improving your life. The FlyLady home control journal helps to reduce stress and mental clutter by having everything written down (or typed out) so you don't have to remember everything. I don't know about you, but I often forget what I walked into a room for, let alone, a whole weekly menu plan, cleaning routine, and to-list!

Now if you aren't into my style or design, just create your own home journal by typing it up in a word processing program or even start by just writing it down on blank sheets of paper!

It's a Living, Breathing Document

The Flylady home control journal will change with you as your life changes. While your kids are young your life will be different than when they're teenagers, or when they leave home. This will also depend on whether or not you have children, or if you work inside or outside of the home.

If you move house, then your routines and zone cleaning may change as you might have different rooms than before. So that's why I keep my journal typed up in a word processing program and can change it at anytime and print out new sheets.

Ready for the journal? Let's go!

FlyLady Home Control Journal – Home Management Binder

Basic Supplies

Cilley suggests using what you already have in your home. For me, I only had one extra 3-ring binder. I had to buy the rest, but the supplies were all under $10 each, so it wasn't expensive.

The basic supplies you'll need in your FlyLady home control journal are:

The Binder

Cilley suggests that you start with what you already have in your home, which I think is great advice. For most of us, we have a spare or old three-ring binder lying around somewhere. Grab that to start! If you don't have any, I suggest buying a binder you really like, that makes you smile. This will make it more likely for you to pick up and actually USE your binder. Here's one from Vera Bradley on Amazon that comes with dividers and is SO pretty!

The one I currently have is a one-inch, white binder with a clear window on the front and back (click here to see it). Very inexpensive and useful!

The Cover

If you're like me and love to have a pretty cover, you could make your own or take the one I have in the free printable (sign up below to get it). Of course, it isn't necessary at all to get started with this system if you've not got a cover yet. This is only for aesthetics!

Marker and Pencil Holder

You're going to need a place to hold pen or pencil, and dry erase markers, so I suggest a pencil pocket for a three-ring binder, like the teal one you see in my pictures (get it here). I don't know about you, but if I don't have writing utensils in the binder itself, I will spend time looking for them, only to have found the kids have taken off with my favorite pen or markers to their rooms! A pencil pocket will save me a lot of time and headaches.

FlyLady Home Control Journal - use dry erase markers to cross off your lists and routines

Dry Erase Markers

You'll be marking off your lists with dry erase markers. If you don't already some some and need to buy them, I suggest getting ones that have erasers on the ends of them. The ones I got from Amazon have little erasers AND a magnet on them for putting on the fridge!

Plastic Sheet Protectors

You'll be keeping your menu plan, routines, zone cleaning lists in plastic sheet protectors so you can cross them off with your dry erase markers each week or month. If you've already got a personal laminator, you could use that instead but you'll need a three-hole puncher to put it in your Flylady home control journal.

Flylady Home Control Journal - Daily Routines Sheet

Daily Routines

This is the first page in my journal since it's how I start my day. I have a morning, afternoon and evening routines typed out and I'm still adding to them as I go. To see a detailed post of how I've created daily routines in my household, click here.

Cilley says out of all of the routines in her system, the morning and evening routines are the most important parts of your day. Why? They act as anchors to the day. If you're going through a chaotic or stressful time like a move, or a death or illness in the family, most of your home managing might be difficult to accomplish for a short time, and that's okay! She says stay focused on your morning and evening routines and you'll feel more peace and order.

Here are my daily routines. You can use mine as a starting point and then customize it to fit your life! It's fun to check off my lists everyday.

MORNING

  • Make bed
  • Get dressed to shoes
  • Fix hair
  • Do makeup
  • Start a load of laundry
  • Empty dishwasher or start dishwasher
  • Make coffee and eat breakfast 

AFTERNOON

  • Help kids do homework, pick up for game time
  • Exercise – 30 minutes
  • Dinner prep – look at menu plan, start defrosting meat
  • Put clothes in dryer or fold

EVENING

  • Take bath, brush teeth, apply moisturizer
  • Look at weather for tomorrow, pick out outfit
  • Start diffuser
  • Netflix or read
Flylady home control journal - Daily Focus

Daily Focus

This is a concept I had never done in my life until now, and I was missing out! Cilley has a list of ideas to have as your daily focus and they are (copy and paste these into your journal if you like):

  • Monday – Weekly Home Blessing Hour (clean high traffic areas for one hour)
  • Tuesday – Plan and Play Day – do weekly menu planning, grocery list, look at calendar and weather, look at upcoming birthdays, holidays, etc, and plan for them, etc.
  • Wednesday – Anti-Procrastination Day – schedule or do one thing you've been putting off
  • Thursday – Errand Day – this is your main day for running errands
  • Friday – Clean car, purse and book bags, date night
  • Saturday – Family fun day
  • Sunday – Renew your spirit day

So I rearranged some of the days to work better for me. All my kids are in school on Mondays so I do my planning on Mondays. My daughter is home with me on Tuesdays and she loves to go shopping, so I moved errand day to Tuesdays. And I moved the Weekly Home Blessing Hour day to Thursday from Monday since I'm home that day and not working.

So the idea is you can totally customize it to work for your schedule and your life! Having a focus to each day has really helped to reduct mental clutter and stress for me. I wake up knowing what I'm doing that day and it feels great! I used to wake up and feel all foggy and groggy because I didn't have a plan or intention for the day.

Weekly Home Blessing Hour - FlyLady Home Control Journal

Weekly Home Blessing Hour

The idea here is you spend one focus hour cleaning only the high traffic areas of your home. Set your timer for 10-15 minutes on each task and cross off items in your Flylady home control journal as you finish them. Cilley relies on timers in her method to help you not get burned out and exhausted by cleaning for too long. When we clean for too long, then the next week we are like, “UGH! I don't wanna clean again! It'll take up my whole morning!” The timer helps you stay consistent, week after week. We do not have to clean everything on the list each week – focus on the dirtiest spots first.

Here's my customized weekly cleaning list. Again, you edit it to make it work for the high traffic areas in your home.

  • Mop kitchen and entryway
  • Vacuum living room
  • Vacuum office
  • Collect bed sheets & replace, put in laundry room to wash
  • Dust living room
  • Wipe living room windows
  • Collect bath towels and wash
Zone Cleaning with the FlyLady System

Zone Cleaning

This was the most brilliant part to Cilley's FlyLady System for me! You divide your home into five zones. Every 4-5 days, you change zones. You clean for 10-15 minutes a day (using a timer) in each zone. The idea here is not that you clean every single thing on the zone list, but that you get to what you can that week.

I've been crossing off what I get done and then the next month I start on the things I didn't cross off from the month before, or I clean the dirtiest spots first.

Zone Cleaning with the Flylady system

Again – all of our homes are different. Customize your's to fit your unique life!

  1. Entryway, Yard, Garage
  2. Kitchen, Pantry & Laundry Room
  3. Bathrooms
  4. Master Bedroom & Bath
  5. Living Rooms and Bedrooms (Kids & Guest)

I'll be sharing with you detailed posts on each of the zones in a later blog post and videos!

Weekly Meal Plan with the Flylady System

Weekly Meal Plan

In this section, I'm keeping our favorite recipes (not ALL recipes, just our family meal favorites), the weekly meal plan, and a list of our favorite family meals. To make the weekly meal plan, I pull from the list of our favorite family meals and it makes it so much easier for me to plan ahead!

Self Care Ideas

In her book, FlyLady Marla emphasizes how important it is that we do a little something for ourselves each and every day. As mothers and caregivers, we give A LOT of ourselves. So, Diane in Denmark came up with the idea to add a section of Self Care Ideas and a Self Care Bingo card to the journal. Pick a few things from the list each week to do for yourself. They need not be fancy or even cost much money at all! It's just a focused, simple thing to treat yourself daily.

Seasonal Bucket Lists with the Flylady System and a Home Control Journal

Seasonal and Holiday Bucket Lists

This is my own addition to the FlyLady home control journal. I laminated these sheets and put one up on the refrigerator each month. As a family, we sit down at the beginning of the season or holiday and create our bucket list for that season. I LOVE doing this because it keeps us accountable to spend fun time together as a family.

We sometimes leave fun out of life, don't we? And we all know life's way too short to leave the fun out! The items from these bucket lists are where the precious childhood memories are made!

So, whew! That was a lot! If you made it this far you're well on your way to having an organized, decluttered and happy home.

If you enjoying learning how to make your own Flylady home control journal here, you might also like:

Related Posts:

Preschool Learning Activities - Montessori Math and Language Works and Trays
A Mama's Guide to Breastfeeding Essentials
Detoxify Your Food - Week 1 of a Detoxify Your Life Challenge
Get in the Christmas Spirit with Holiday Diffuser Bomb Recipes

89 Comments

      2. Hi Sara! I started watching you on youtube at the beginning of the year. I was making my New Year’s Resolution and saw you on my feed. I really enjoyed your videos and would like to take advantage of the free printables. You are an inspiration, thank you!

        Reply

  4. Thanks for this post! I’ve known about FlyLady for many years now, but I’ve found her site to be too overwhelming and so I don’t get anywhere with it. Where do I sign up to receive the free printables? I didn’t see an option for those specifically. Thanks!

    Reply

    1. Hi Laura! There was a technical error in the emails at first, I’m so sorry. It’s since been fixed. You can get the free printables in the box right above these comments – there’s a place to write your email address and I’ll email them to you.

      Reply

  10. Hi Sara. I’m finally serious about this and ready to go. I have all my supplies to make the binder just need the printables. You are a true inspiration. I was overloaded when you first offered this so just could not participate. But now I’m ready and really excited to implement in my home. Hope you are having good travels-can’t wait to hear about your adventures in Germany.

    Reply

  13. Thanks for this. I’m very familiar with FlyLady, but have fallen off her wagon. Excited to find this group.
    Have you ever heard of the Sidetracked Home Executives?
    That’s where I began many, many moons ago……….
    Thank you again. I’m hopeful.

    Reply

    1. Hi Krista! The link to the printables comes in the very first email you get from me. I suggest doing a search in your email for my website – mymerrymessylife.com and there will probably be a welcome email there with the links.

      Reply

  20. Thank you for the offer of free printables for cleaning. I think this will be so helpful in so many ways.

    Reply

  21. Hi I confirm subscription to your email but I do not see any printables nor a welcome letter or anything as you mentioned above.

    Reply

    1. Did you ever receive your free printables? I’m asking because I’m wondering the same thing. I signed up, confirmed my subscription, but haven’t received any other emails … and the site’s owner doesn’t seem to be replying to comments here anymore. :- /

      Reply

  25. Please send me the Flylady control journal printables! I am also going to look for your Detoxing your home book on Amazon. I’m about to move into a new home and start a new life and want to make this place an oasis from the get-go! Thanks so much!

    Reply

  27. I would love to receive the free printables! Just moved into a new home and became a stay at home mom with two babies and one on the way. I’ve never been so excited to start from scratch since hearing about FlyLady 🙂

    Reply

  28. I would love to get the FlyLady control journal. I have submitted my email address and confirmed my subscription, but still have not received an email. I also signed up for the free ebook and when I try to confirm my subscription through my email, it sends me to a site called convertkit where I need to create an account. Looks like there’s some type of error.

    Reply

  29. Hello! I didn’t see a place to sign up with my email for the printables. Can I still do that? Thanks so much!

    Reply

  31. I’m 67….have already lived a wonderful life and raised four wonderful sons who are wonderful husbands and dads, but now I need to take control (in a systematic manner) of our home! We just remodeled, and I’m looking forward to keeping everything neat and tidy! Thank you for offering the free printables. I’ve ordered all I need to get started!

    Reply

  35. Trying to put together my own control journal. I’ve tried in the past but it always seemed “controlling”. If that makes sense. I’m looking for ideas to make it more eye catching so maybe I might enjoy using it.

    Reply

  37. I’ve decided this is my year to get organized. ? I had subscribed to Flylady in the past but it was tooooo much. I thought I would give you a try and have liked what I have seen so far. Hopefully you can help! Thank you for your simplicity.

    Reply

  48. Thank you! This is exactly what i’ve been looking for! Flylady was a lifesaver as i had my eight children and moved often with my husband, but now we are settled on a farm and the children are growing up and moving out, i realized i need to get back onto a system that doesn’t rely on quite so many little helpers…

    Reply

  51. Thank you. I need your help and have been for a very long time. How do I find to control journal to print so i can start this for myself.

    Reply

  57. I have been using the Fly Lady app for awhile now, but have wanted to make my own binder. I’m excited to find your website and your offer to provide your home journal printables at no cost and your encouraging emails! Thank you!

    Reply

  60. Learned about your site from some younger ladies at my Bible Study yesterday. I am excited! Once again this year I’m trying to declutter and thought how nice it would be to have an accountability partner. The notebook sounds like a great idea as I have lists all over my house. Thank you for the idea.

    Reply

  65. Have enjoyed your posts and am looking forward to setting up my own version of the journal with the help of your printable.
    Thank you in advance.

    Reply

  70. Hello, is the free control journal printable still available? I don’t see the option to sign up for the email. Thank you

    Reply

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