Day 20: The Chore of Making a Chore Chart

It seems that every time I determine a topic to blog about, and a habit to either change or form anew, my immediate thought is, “I’m really going to have to work at this one!” So far, so good, though. Twenty days in; twenty days of positive change, or at least positive rambling. Twenty days…let’s see, that’s one-nineteenth of the way through. But who’s counting?

I guess it’s time to address the item Dom has tried for years to get me to revisit. The Chore Chart. We used to have a chart...years ago...before kids.

Oh, you thought the chore chart was for the kids? Oh, no, no, no. This one is for the adults.

It sounds crazy, but it worked like a charm. We had a chart of the rooms we would clean – top to bottom – each night of the week. It broke the house down into manageable sections. We knew on Tuesday night we would be focusing on the living room; Wednesday we would scrub the bathrooms, etc. And since every room got hit at least weekly, the rooms were never dirty enough to cost us too much of our evening. We used to rock that little chore chart. I don’t know why we ever stopped using it, unless it was those little humans we popped out that interrupted the chore chart (among other things) and left me uttering four tiny words in my sleep: We need a maid…

Over the last few years, Dom has asked me to put together a chart once again so that we could better manage the clutter and cleanliness of our home. I resisted. I don’t know why I was so reluctant to map it out again. I think deep down I had finally come to understand what it feels like to relax in the evenings with no agenda, and I just didn’t want to give that up. But that’s only positive on a superficial level. The very act of me getting off my duff in the evenings would benefit more than just myself.

And so it goes. We have a new chore chart. And this one is cool. Every room gets cleaned once a week, while once a month the walls and baseboards will get washed in those rooms, conveniently spread out so that we are washing walls and baseboards only once during any week. Also, the garage gets cleaned and organized once a month, as well as the air filters getting replaced and the light fixtures getting washed. Bathrooms get scrubbed twice a week, and laundry has no chance of piling up.

If we stick with it, this should all work out quite nicely. And if you call and we don’t answer the phone, just know we can’t hear it ringing over the vacuum cleaner.