I confessed to Mike a few weeks ago that I needed more help. That I felt like I was doing more than my fair share of chores and that the mental burden of juggling all of it was weighing down on me. He objected, saying he felt like he was cleaning up me more than he should.
I explained that although he certainly helps around the house, the responsibility of remembering to schedule Gabe’s doctor appointments, which days I need to wash his diapers, to change the load of laundry (we share a washer and dryer with our floor, so it’d be rude and against the rules to leave laundry in the washer too long), dealing with the internet company, paying our bills, and balancing our budget falls on me. Not to mention I cook most nights, even when I work.
He, sweet, understanding husband that he is, said he’d like to establish a chore chart so we have clear boundaries of who does what. We’ve tried in the past, but the only rule we came up with was, “Make the dinner, do the dishes.”
Weeks passed and nothing changed. I made a chore chart of daily, weekly, and monthly chores and slipped it in a clear protective sleeve to use with a whiteboard marker. We didn’t use this chart.
So, I asked Twitter what they did and the answers were fascinating.
Some were super balanced and equal and way more organized than we are:
@ecbuergler: We each made a list of ones that we don’t hate, made sure time wise that it was more or less even and then stuck with it
@AngieBailey13: We’ll go by taste, or we’ll trade. Like I do [chore] this day/week, Jen does ’tis the next! Or we’ll tackle them together, or tackle the same room together.
@LovelyAnomaly: By taste. I hate dusting, but C hates vacuuming. So I vacuum & he dusts. I hate folding laundry, so I wash & he folds.
@tillien: well, we took what we each like/don’t like to do and went from there. meaning – him kitchen, me bathroom (though I dont like then everything else can be up for grabs or rotated.)
@ItsAshleyKoch: We split all the household chores, including groceries, in half, and then switch off every week. Except for dishes. We switch off every day for those.
@deannaogle: I’m not really sure how we decided. Since I cook I took the dishes, and laundry. He took bathroom and trash. And the rest we split depending on who can. It accidentally works!
@stefcia: When we clean the whole house, I clean kitchen, he cleans bathroom, I dust and do surfaces, he vacuums and washes floors. Daily chores – he washes dishes (non-dishwasher items), I dry, I load/unload dishwasher. We each do our own regular laundry, but we split gym laundry and linens – whoever gets around to it first.
(This is a well-oiled machine!)
@smacdo03: I’m the planner/organizer, so I do anything that requires monitoring (laundry, shopping/cooking, finances) while Dave does the ‘it’s here & must be done’ stuff — cleaning, ironing, lawn, snow. Child-care is shared. Almost 8 yrs in, works well.
Some have professional help (I wish!):
@stephcorwin: I do laundry, he does dishes, and the housecleaners do the rest ;)
@tatabex: I know it’s not an option for everyone, but we have a cleaning lady come 2x a month. worth every penny not to fight about it.
Some do more work than others:
@liveloudlyk: I wish I knew! I always grocery shop, meal plan and the rest depends on the week but its mostly my week ;)
@fabbrunette: I do most of it and when he helps I thank him and act grateful so that perhaps he’ll do it again. #chores
@oiler02: I do most of the chores b/c i stay home now but before we each picked disliked the most and the other did them
@srslylisa: He does everything! Well, I shop and cook. He cleans.
And some are as clueless as I am:
@redmudnessa: let me know when you find out….8 years and we haven’t figured it out either.
With this in mind and a list of chores (divided into monthly, weekly, and daily chores) typed up, I sat down with Mike and we talked for a while about the best way to divvy up chores. I tried the, “What chores do we hate?” route, but that got nowhere fast, since neither of particularly hate any chores.
Always wanting turn everything into an! Exciting! Activity! I printed out two copies of the chores and decided we’d each mark who does what chores on our sheet and compare:
Happily, we had very similar lists – although I gave myself a bit more chores than Mike gave me.
I went back and got to flex my organizing muscle (I LOVE EXCEL) by making a complicated chart with squares for daily chores, weekly chores, and monthly chores. It looks cumbersome and overwhelming. I hated it. Instead, I went back to original one, but split it up into two columns. I slipped it into a sheet protector and we can mark off chores as we do them with a dry erase marker.
So far, it’s worked out well. It’s just nice to know what are *my* chores and what are Mike’s chores now. No guessing. No comparing or arguing over who does more. If I have a few minutes while I’m waiting for water to boil, I can glance over at the chore list and remind myself that there’s something I could be doing. AND, I get the satisfaction of seeing a list of checked off chores each week.
UPDATE: Here is our chore list on Google Docs – you can save it and edit it to add or remove chores for your and your spouse/boyfriend/significant other/roommate/cat/etc.
I really might have to steal this, because we did a rota once, and it lasted a week, and then we fell back into…well, me doing it. I think something visual and on the fridge is the way for us to go.
Very interesting to read how others do the chores. In our house, I do everything except trash. Occasionally she will wash the clothes. Oh, She handles all the finances. it works out for the most part but I assume after a kid comes into the picture, things change. There is definitely more work to be done. I definitely love this chart. I need it in print stat :-)
Although we have our chores pretty well divided up (as stated in my tweet!), I actually love the idea of having a printed list we can dry-erase. When we do a big weekend cleaning, my husband writes everything down that we need to do and then we cross it off, but what a waste of paper to do it every week or two! I never thought of coming up with something like this.
This post couldn’t have come at a better time, because guess what Andrew and I got into a yelling match about on Monday? Yep. Chores. Like you, I’ve felt for awhile that I’ve been doing more than my share and it drives me nuts. I’m definitely going to make us a chore chart and divide things up because seriously, I can’t handle it any more. It causes so much strife. Thanks for this.
Ashley – I love this idea! Sitting down and dividing things up and making this chart is such a simple thing but really goes a long way. I think my husband and I need to work on this this weekend.
You wouldn’t mind passing along your documents for this would you?? I LOVE this idea. This is the number one thing at home we argue about at the time. Chores. Neither of us are the biggest fans. :p
Great idea. I feel like I do way more than my fair share, but I don’t like to bring it up in a mature and adult way. I prefer to get sooky about it and then make some rude asinine comment and wait for Peter to pick up on it, so we can argue about it, and he starts to clean up, only to have me feel guilty and snatch the broom/vacuum/cloth/whatever and start doing it myself. Rinse and repeat. Good times.
We need something like this, obviously. With incentives for being good boys and girls (like if we do our chores all week, we get to go out for coffee!) Thank you for sharing!
My husband and I have some issues in the past, with him thinking he does more than I do. I think having a chore chart where we can really look at all the responsibilities would be really helpful, plus a check list to make sure things get done! Sometimes I feel like we go a *little* too long between bathroom cleanings… yuck!
This is very interesting and perfectly timed. My boyfriend and I recently moved in together and we had the “I-do-more-than-you” argument last weekend.
I see that your chore is writing a monthly budget – I’m curious as to how you do this at the beginning of the month without knowing what items may come up or exactly what you’re going to make that month (if you’re a freelancer this could be the case). I’d be interested in you doing a post on the ins & outs of your household budget and how you go about writing it on a monthly basis. Right now ours is kind of on an as-needed try to be frugal but never really know basis and it’s making me crazy!
I LOVE the idea of a chore chart. I think writing it out really brings more clarity to who does what (because, come on, let’s be honest, women always tend to lift the heavier load…. ). Thanks for sharing your chart. I might have to come up with something similar :)
Thanks for posting this – I’ve been feeling like I’ve been doing “more than my fair share” lately and sitting down to make up a chore chart just might do the trick :) I know a lot of the time I feel like I’m doing SO much – but I forget the things that Nathan does, like taking the car in for oil changes and doing Costco runs (I HATE Costco!)… and he probably doesn’t realize all the things I do either.
Look at you – such a democratic process with a great outcome – I love it! Of course, this would never work for me. Because I’m SPOILED and BRATTY and refuse to clean and I also refuse to yell at Sweets until he cleans (because, it takes a lot of reminding – we tried that). So, we pay for a house cleaning service and share (without assignment) the rest. I can tell you we don’t fight about the state of our house. But, we have also come to accept a certain level of disorganization, which neither of us love, but neither of us are really willing to address, either.
We don’t have anything official, but I hate vacuuming so Chris does that. I don’t mind surface-cleaning like countertops, showers, and toilets, so I handle the bathroom. Towels/linens are just tackled by whoever gets there first. Good luck with the list!
check you out, love that schedule. sadly i don’t think matt and i could stick to one like that, at least not now while he’s partially useless, haha. but i’m with the first batch of your twitter responses in that we don’t make the other do the chores they hate, like i usually wash dishes and matt will put them away. tends to work out okay most of the time.
Last summer Eric worked 7-3 and I worked 8:30-4:30 so we had a really good routine going where AS SOON as I got home from work we would spend 30 minutes cleaning TOGETHER. It worked so great for us for a couple months but then Eric went back to school and our schedules got all out of whack and we’re back to not really knowing what to do. I will say Eric is really good about helping when I ask him to but it sucks to have to ask a lot of the time… I would say now our house is messier than ever. I’m totally on the hired help bandwagon, as soon as he’s done school and we’re both working full-time we are hiring a housekeeper! Lol
This is such a big topic of conversation for anyone who lives with someone else! My boyfriend and I live together and our biggest quarrel is over the dishes. We don’t have a dishwasher, so it really is the biggest chore. I have to be honest, he cooks dinner most often. We are pretty much on our own for cooking our own breakfast and lunch as we are on different schedules then. The dishes battle has gotten so bad ( I mean these things pile up) That we have resorted to ( I am ashamed with my love for a greener lifestyle and all) buying some paper plates and plastic cups. Yes we recycle our cups, and we swear we owe the earth two whole trees in our yard when we get our own land, but this has saved our stress though it is not saving the planet. I know, it’s terrible. So maybe, working out a plan such as every other day someone else washes the dishes, we might live more “green” again.
Luckily I have a great guy and he is so helpful when it comes to cleaning. He helps me cook, grocery shop, do the dishes, laundry, sweep, mop, make the bed, put away laundry, fold laundry, brush the cat, and clean up around the place. Honestly, we are the most happy when we do the chores together at the same time. It gets done quicker too, and no one feels like they are pulling more weight. Though I think a chart would be a great addition to our livelihood. Thanks for sharing! I know it’s not always easy living with someone else and dividing up the chores!
I used to do more of the housework before I started working full time. Then last year I got a full time job and a long commute so I wanted my husband to do more. It kind of worked but not perfectly so just before Christmas we tried out this website – http://www.chorewars.com
We put in all the chores and we log when we do one. Then you can see if one of you does more than the other, assign bigger rewards to the chores you both hate etc. You get “gold” for doing a chore and we decided to make 1 gold = 1 penny on Amazon (1 cent!) which gives more incentive to do chores as you can save up for Cds, DVDs or books. It might sound a bit lame but it’s really worked for us!
Gosh I love this. Brett and I are pretty good about splitting chores (for now), but I can definitely see this being useful once our little baby arrives in May! Our current chores are split by “gross-factor” – Brett takes out the trash, cleans the toilets, scrubs the shower, and kills the spiders ;)
For awhile, we used this: http://www.chorewars.com/
But we fell off the wagon because logging our chores got tedious. Now we just make it work, though I do feel like I do a bulk of the work even on top of all my school work. I regularly load/unload the dishwasher, clean the kitchen, grocery shop (which includes extensive meal planning and coupon clipping), cook, and do laundry. He does anything outside: trash, mow, shovel snow. And he does the litter box when I remind him. We take turns feeding the cat. We don’t regularly vacuum or mop or clean cabinets/closets or anything (yes, we’re lazy and the house is always in some state of clutter/disarray), so that stuff just gets done when I decide it needs to get done. Then I feel awful asking for help.
I’ll keep an eye on these comments, too, to see if any more good suggestions pop up! Thank you for writing a post on this!
This is so great and I am probably going to steal it. My husband and I struggle with this all the time and it usually comes to a head because I feel like I’m doing more than my fair share. I love the idea of a chore chart so hopefully he’s as enthused. Hee.
Please share your chore document. It looks perfect me my and my boyfriend.
Love your blog!
Oh, this is something I totally need! I mean, I live with my mom but she will happily do all the chores (she finds it relaxing??) for the house, only asking me to do things from time to time. And I feel bad! I need to help out more so I’m totally going to use this doc!
I’m glad it’ll be helpful! You are so sweet to think of your mom. :)
Thank you so much for this post. I’ve been feeling the same way w my boyfriend (hopefully one day husband.) I’m going to use your sheet as a template- LOVE!
I know I’m really (REALLY) late commenting on this, but thank you so much! My husband and I have really been feeling resentment towards each other over chores and I’ve been looking for something to help. I think this is just the thing!
Thank you for this! I found your blog through Google (love it!) and I’m using your chart as a template (thank you!). I’m creating one that is very specific to M / T / W / TH / F / SAT because my husband (a military brat) thrives on really clear directions and schedule. If I just said weekly every thing would be done on the same day leaving our place a mess for the rest of the week.
This is really going to help my relationship. My boyfriend got behind on doing his finances and missed something which had consequences for him, and it freaked him out about the unscheduled nature of our present existence. He took this out on me, even including a comment which essentially amounted to “my ex-wife may have made me miserable but at least she kept the trains running on time”. This is only allowed because it was a really distressing and high-consequence thing he missed, so he was under pressure.
Anyway, we’ve both got the absentmindedness and procrastination-heavy personalities that require something like this to help us keep the trains running at all. The under-my-nose things like cleaning and cooking get done, but the sometime-next-week bits like going through all of the mail and financial matters get missed. For him, same — pill refills get held off until there are only two left in the bottle, the dry-cleaning sometimes stays in the shop for weeks on end after it’s ready. This is by far the best type of chart and system I’ve seen for a couple to assign and keep to its goals… thank you and thank you again.