I've received a few emails and comments asking me to share more details about the chore charts I mentioned a few weeks back, and while I question you all soliciting housekeeping advice from me, the Unequivocal Queen of Dust Bunnies, I will happily share what (little) I know about domestic duties.
The first thing you should know (and one of the main tenets of my method of housekeeping) is that if you have kids, you can make them do some of your chores. I know - cool huh?!! As long as you tell everyone that it's "helping teach them responsibility" and "building character" it's totally acceptable. (It is not, however, acceptable to insist they become practiced somelliers and be proficient in the art of selecting, pairing and uncorking wines for your nightly meals. That, apparently, is frowned upon by CPS. Hmph.)
Anyway, around here, the kiddos pitch in. Each of them has a certain number of chores (which, not so coincidentally, coincides with their ages) that they have to do on a daily and weekly basis. That reminds me...Hayden is 11 now! He totally owes me a chore! Hmmmm....
And because I'm a graphic artist and am all about the visual presentation, I've printed up these lovely checklists for them to keep track of their duties:
I can't take credit for the cute design - I downloaded the template from Gennifer's blog and customized the lists for each kiddo. But they're neat! And colorful! And contain cool retro fonts! I layer a tranparency over the list and we use dry-erase markers to check off the chores, so it can be wiped clean and re-used each week.
So yeah. Each kid has their list of chores, as well as a few optional chores that they can do to earn money over-and-above their usual allowance. Yes, I do pay them a weekly allowance (again, equal to their ages) and they use that money to purchase apps for the iPad, songs for their iPods, candy, gum, Slurpees, cigarettes (just making sure you're paying attention!) and other items I refuse to buy. They are also encouraged to save it for bigger purchases and I can avoid the infamous Toy Aisle Arguments at Target by reminding them of this concept. They are also required to donate a portion of their allowance to charity each month. And while I tried to convince them that Mommy's Wine Fund is an excellent cause, they both have opted to support the Humane Society instead.
And even though I've pawned off a few of my household chores on the young 'uns, there's still a whole lot of tasks required to keep our house from becoming featured on Hoarders. To determine these tasks, I did a walk-through on each room of the house and wrote down everything requiring regular attention. I included laundry as well, but only because my previous method of Ignore It And Eventually It Will Go Away has proven to be unsuccessful.
Once I had this Master List of Chores, (which you should totally capitalize and bold, because then it looks all official-like) I decided which ones had to be done weekly and which ones could be done every other week. And some of them (like dusting the formal dining room that we use twice a year) got deleted all together. Don't judge.
Then I made two chore lists. Each one contains the all the weekly chores. The every-other-week chores got split up evenly between the two weeks, resulting in my final lists:
Once again...a neat, orderly list in pretty, pretty colors. Wheeee!
Each week I alternate between the aqua and the green list, which each contain 34 tasks. If I do approximately 6 tasks each day (which usually takes about an hour, give or take), it keeps the house perpetually clean. And I can avoid the freak-out-melt-down-say-lots-of-bad-words when unexpected guests show up and my house hasn't seen a vacuum or toilet brush in, um, 34 days? (I think I already told you - don't judge.)
So there you have it. How to keep your house clean with six chores a day. And if you happen to skip a day and get a bit off track, you can always employ my back-up method of housekeeping: Drink a glass of wine and fuhgeddaboudit.
