INTRO to "ZONES"

Once your chore lists are done your are ready to ZONE!! I have WEEKLY "Zones" & my children have DAILY "Zones". "Zoning" is a Flylady concept & I have tweaked it a little. Zones are areas of your house that you create to do MAJOR cleaning in for 10-15 minutes each day (this is when the microwave is cleaned, the pantry is organized, ect). Here is my idea on "Zoning" for my family:


You don't have to have seperate zones for you and the kids -- You can create a zone for the group that all of you spend time in each day together. I decided to create seperate zones b/c there are so many of us & I am fearful that when I am focusing on one area, the rest will fall apart. So, while I am working one week on a room, my children are keeping up the pace around the rest of the house by rotating rooms each day. Another option for seperate zones is to give each child their own zone to be responsible for. Just have each child spend 10 minutes a day in their zone.


Decide if you want to work on zones together or if you want seperate zones (*kid zones can rotate weekly instead of daily too)
Pick your Zones (here are a few examples, but this will depend on your house size & design)

Fly Lady Zones are:
Zone 1: The Entrance, Front Porch and Dining Room
Zone 2: The Kitchen
Zone 3: The Bathroom and One Extra Room
Zone 4: The Master Bedroom
Zone 5: The Living Room

My Zones are:
Kitchen
Living Room
Bedroom
School Room
Kids Room
*Bathroom (I did not put this on my chart mainly b/c I live with 4 boys so my bathroom needs attention on an AS NEEDED basis.)

My Chilrens Zones are:
Bedroom
School Room
Living Room
Kitchen
Yard

My zones, as I described, are WEEKLY. So, for the first week of the month I work on zone 1 every day for 10-15 minutes. Example March 3-7 I work on my kitchen, the next week I will work on the living room & so on. The kids are DAILY, so on Monday (AS A GROUP) they work on the bedrooms (*exception is my daughter works on hers & the boys theirs together). On Tuesday they will ALL work on the school room, ect. . . Another thought, depending on how many children you have, is giving each child a different zone weekly or daily. Example Taylor, Mon - bedroom, Tue - school room, Wed - Kitchen Tyler, Mon - yard, Tue - Living Room, Wed - bedroom OR Week 1: Taylor - Kitchen, Tyler - Yard, Tucker - School Room



After you have created your zones

Decide how you are going to work in them (individual/group/mom/kids & weekly/daily)

Pick your weeks or days (REMEMBER ACTIVITIES)
Create a cleaning/to do list for each zone (if you are doing zones seperate from the kids you may want to make a different list of things you want them to do -- you can assign tasks for each child or just let them while they are cleaning.)

Set a time limit for zone work (at first you may want to spend longer to get into the routine, but try not to spend longer than 15 minutes)