Chore Chart

Disclaimer: I'm really not as lame as this post makes me out to be.


I don't like to clean. But I do love having a clean house and the feeling I get when there's no clutter. Back when I was working at the church before we had kids, I had Fridays off. It was awesome. Since Scott and I were both working outside of the home, our house stayed pretty clean. So I would use only a couple of hours maybe every other Friday to clean the whole place. It wasn't really a big deal.
Then when I was pregnant (with twins) and still working, I was needing to really limit my activity to prevent pre-term labor. So for a Christmas present that year, Scott got me a maid to come once a month. It was actually a man maid, which for some reason is funny to me. His name was Matthew and he was a college grad who just loved to clean so he started a business called Clean Commando. I don't think he actually cleaned "commando." I hope not. But even if he did I didn't care because he was awesome! When he came for the consult, it was a little like we were filming a Saturday Night Live skit. Let's just say he takes his job very seriously. The first "initial cleaning" he told us we would need to be gone all day. He came over before 8 a.m. and Scott and I got home after a movie or something that night at 10:30 AND HE WAS STILL THERE! That's 14 hours of cleaning people, and I keep my house pretty clean. So Matthew came for several months, and I loved not having to clean my house, especially pregnant. But what I figured out was that I actually didn't appreciate the cleanliness nearly as much. I think I was looking for the same feelings of accomplishment and hard work paying off that I was used to having after my couple hours of effort. Like I would just walk in after Matthew had been there and feel some sort of gratification for all his effort. But I didn't.
Matthew continued to come for a couple of months after the kids were born. Scott and I were talking about cancelling the service, and then good ol' Matthew sent us a letter that he was raising rates (damn economy) so we bailed. A couple of months went by that were pretty tough. I was still trying to figure out how to keep two babies simultaneously satisfied, while balancing life in general. And the problem was that now our house was lived in. No more empty house sitting around all day waiting for its owners to come lay on the couches. Three people being in the house all day lead to lots more work to be done. There was constant traffic on the floors, the bathrooms got a lot more attention, and we over-doubled our laundry piles.  I noticed that things would be fine and then all the sudden I would freak out because I looked around and saw toilets that needed scrubbing, the floors were filthy, dust was everywhere, and piles of laundry were about to overtake us. It all seemed too overwhelming.
I decided that I needed to discipline myself a little. I couldn't just cruise through life for days at a time because I realized I would soon get super cranky and stressed out because all that I had put off. If I did just a little bit of housework everyday while the babies were napping, I could stay on top of it. So I created my trusty chore chart that I've been using every week for over two years. The purpose isn't to force myself to abide by some legal system, but to keep me from losing it because I've put everything off for too long. And there is definitely freedom within my system...believe me, I'm not that hard on myself. There are weeks that are busier than others, weeks where I'm not feeling great, weeks where my kid has pneumonia, weeks where we're travelling...blah blah blah. The point is just to give me a plan. I like plans.
So I divided up everything that needed to be done every week, pairing things that were less intensive to do on the same day. I'm still very much against spending our weekends doing chores, so I only did Monday-Friday.
Here it is:


Monday

• Dust furniture, picture frames, etc.
• Laundry
• H&H Clothes
• Sheets or towels, alternating weeks. (Don't worry, I still change our towels on "sheets week," I just wash all the towels every other week. Sheets don't get changed except for when I wash them every two weeks...I'm not superwoman.) 

Tuesday

• Clean floors. Usually I just vacuum and spot-mop the wood/tile. And vacuum the bedroom carpets when I get really motivated.

Wednesday

• Clean bathrooms

Thursday

• Disinfect kitchen counters and sink
• Laundry
• H&H Clothes
• S&K Clothes

Friday

• Catch-up on anything I didn't get to! (Usually finish up laundry) Get ready for a fun non-chore weekend!

I realize this sounds like I get really excited about cleaning and I spend all my time doing it. Wrong. It seriously only takes about a half-hour to do each day. The system works for me and I feel like I am way less-stressed and I don't have those freak-out moments because everything has gone awry. I feel more fun and free to enjoy my kids, husband, and home because I'm on top of my game. And that's worth it to me. It also feels better to me than having a maid because I'm teaching my kids that we take responsibility for our own things/messes. And that its a joy and privilege to take care of the home God has blessed us with. 

One thing still plaguing me: my car. At any given moment you can find chewed-on sucker sticks, sippy cup from weeks ago, school projects/papers, shoes, mail, Sonic cups, and dozens of toys scattered around the backseat. I have the whole "toy bag" but the toys never seem to make it back into the bag. So if anyone has a brilliant plan for keeping your car from becoming a pigsty, I'm all ears.