One Day at a Time: The Only Chore Chart You’ll Ever Need
It’s no secret that the key to cleaning success is to do a little bit every day. Of course, there are the things you already keep up with daily or regularly—like doing the dishes, taking out the trash, or wiping down the kitchen counters—but it’s the tasks beyond that that can so easily fall by the wayside if you don’t have a plan that fits in with your already busy schedule.
Beyond the daily chores and the ones that just happen when they need to happen (like laundry, for example), there are home tasks that should be done once a week, as well as tasks that you might take on once or twice a month (like cleaning out your freezer or pantry). Some take a few minutes, some take an hour, so if you put them off, it adds up. Taking on one of those tasks every day on a regular schedule means taking a little bit of time out of your normal day to avoid having to spend an entire day—or worse, your entire weekend—taking on chores.
So the last thing you need is to spend another second worrying about how to keep track of those weekly and monthly tasks, right? That’s where a chore chart can come in handy.
Whether you live alone or with roommates or family, it helps to have a visual to refer to when you need to know what has to get done and when. And a chore chart can help you divide up and assign tasks to different members of your household, too. If you put it in a central space—like on your refrigerator—it’ll also serve as a reminder to get stuff done.
To help you keep track of all the tasks (at least, the ones beyond your daily and regularly scheduled homekeeping responsibilities, since you probably already have a system for those), we put them all on one convenient monthly chore chart for you here.
How it works:
If you live alone, or are the main person in charge of keeping home, simply turn to the chart each day, look at the week you’re in and pick a new task to do and check off—you can do them in order from left to right, or just pick the one that works for you that day. If there are other members of your household participating, simply divide them up however works for you. The check boxes on the sheet are big enough to add an initial inside to keep track of who’s tackling what.
Where to put it:
On the fridge, by the front door, or in any other central place where you’re likely to see and use it every day. You can print out a new one each month, or—we like this option better—turn it into something reusable. If you laminate the sheet or put it inside a glass frame, you can check and re-check tasks with a dry erase marker.