Making chores more manageable with lists
Organize your chores
Somehow there always seems to be more housework to do: laundry, vacuuming, dishes, meal planning, dusting, oh my! Chores are an inevitable part of being a functioning adult, and they’re an important part to creating a home that you love. Even though they’re unavoidable (unless you can afford to hire someone to do them all), they don’t need to be a complete drag. With patience, organization, and some practice, you can even turn chores into a valued part of every day life.
There have been many times in my life where I feel overwhelmed by the amount of things to get done. Sometimes it feels like an insurmountable task to excel at a full-time job, care for your household members, and keep the house itself clean and orderly. Not to mention building in time for self-care, exercise, and all of those side projects or hobbies you’ve had on the back burner. And so, as with all stressful areas of life, I turned to lists and organization principles to get a handle on the stress of chores. There’s two areas I’ve found lists to be helpful: allocating chores across the household and developing structure for tackling chores in sizable amounts.
Chore Allocation List
One of the trickiest and most under-acknowledged part of chores is the mental burden of worrying about and planning for everything that needs to be done. Research shows that this often falls on the female-figure of the household, but this mental weight can certainly be felt by anyone who feels accountable for running the household chores. This comes from an implicit expectation that one person will make sure that all of the household chores get done. If you find yourself assuming your partner will make sure there is food in the fridge, clean underwear in your drawers, soap at the sink, and toilet paper in the bathroom, it is likely that your partner is carrying this mental weight for the household. And this implicit expectation can take a toll on its own, not to mention the actual work of executing all of those tasks.
So, the first list I developed was to help set more explicit expectations about who was responsible for what in the household. The list is designed to facilitate a conversation about a current state and a future state for household chores, and the goal is to establish clear areas of ownership for chores in your household. This can ensure both that the chores are attended to and also that the mental burden of accountability is shared.
You can see an example of this list below, and you can find a template and recipe for the list in our resources section. To create your own Chore Allocation list:
Write down a list of all of the chores that need to be completed in your household, including everything that takes any effort at all. Consider using a digital spreadsheet tool if possible
Keep in mind, this can include digital tasks as well, such as balancing the budget or paying bills.
Add a column for “Currently responsible” and “Future Responsible”.
[OPTIONAL] You can also consider adding a column for “Size” so you can consider the weight of each item for balancing the list.
For each item in the list, note who is responsible for the item today.
If no one is responsible, write down the person who completes the item most often
If both people are equally responsible, mark it as “Shared”
Try to be as honest as possible in the assessment
If your tool allows, sort the list by the “Currently Responsible” column so you can see how much each person is responsible for.
Use this information to facilitate a discussion about the current state, an ideal state, and how you might re-allocate some of the items to balance the list.
Please keep in mind that your ideal balance will not likely be a 50/50 split. You can and should consider other factors such as work schedules and other commitments when defining the right balance between you.
If it is an option, this is also a time when you may want to discuss hiring help for items that cannot be redistributed if the balance feels unsustainable
Capture the decided owner for each item in the “Future responsible” column if the person can commit to being accountable for the chore.
Follow the decided distribution of chores and check back in after a few weeks to see how it is going and whether further adjustments may need to be made. It may take some time for each person to get accustomed to their new responsibilities, so be patient with one another and be open about challenges and appreciation.
Chore Schedule List
Once you have decided which chores each person is responsible for, it can then be helpful to organize how you will execute on the chores you own. This can help prevent you from feeling overwhelmed by a long list of chores by spreading them out over the week and month. It can also help you keep track of what’s been done and give you a sense of accomplishment for the work on your chores.
To create a chore schedule list, create rows for each week of the quarter and columns for each chore. You can bucket the chores into those that need to be done weekly vs. those that are done every so often so that you can track both in the same list. Once you have the list created, print it out, put it somewhere you can reference it often, and mark off the chores as you complete them. You can also create a daily schedule for which weekly chores you will do each day if it is helpful.
You can see two examples of chore schedule lists below, one with a daily schedule and one without, and you can find templates in our resource section.
Examples:
Chore List
with daily schedule
Chore List
without daily schedule
Two more chore tips
Hopefully the above can help you better balance your chores and create an organized system to reduce the amount of stress they cause. There are two other tactics I’ve found to make chores more enjoyable:
Temptation Bundling: By pairing chores with something you enjoy, say watching episodes of your favorite show or listening to a podcast or audiobook, you can incentivize yourself to spend time on your chores. This makes the chore time more enjoyable because you are bundling something you enjoy with the less fun task of handling housework.
Stay present with reframing: Instead of using a distraction, try staying present during chores to use the time as a sort of meditation. You can make this easier by feeling gratitude for the underlying purpose of chores. For example, when folding your laundry, focus on the beautiful clothes that you wear and express gratitude for having clothes to wear every day. When doing the dishes, express gratitude for having plenty of food to eat and dishware to eat on. While vacuuming the house, think about how grateful you are to have a roof over your head and solid ground to stand on. It may seem a bit simplistic, but creating a practice of gratitude can help you reframe chores into opportunities to stay present and show gratitude. Try it out!
While I can’t make your household chores disappear, I hope the tips and tools above might help you to create a more sustainable system for housework in your household. Feel free to comment with other ideas or to share your favorite chores.
Happy housework!