The Chore Plan

When getting started with scheduling, one of the most helpful things for me was to sit and break down ALL of the household chores into "Daily", "Weekly" and "Monthly" categories.  I literally had three big lists, went room by room and added each imaginable task to the appropriate list. 

For example, the bathroom (Notice I didn't say "my bathroom" as I was tempted to!  My amazing husband ,as of yesterday, finished our master bathroom!  Now for the first time in our married lives we have our own bathroom!  Just a little excited here!!)  is broken down like this~

Daily~  Wipe off counter and sink.  Swish toilet with brush.  Pick up and sweep floor.

Weekly~  Clean mirror.  Clean toilet.  Take out garbage.

Monthly~  Deep clean sink (pull out that tooth brush!).  Clean shower.  Wash shower curtain and bath mat.  Clean tub toys.  Organize drawers and cupboards.  Mop floor.

After the chores are in their proper category,  it takes a little monkeying around to figure out how to best fit them into each week.  Sunday is a non-work day for us and I've found that Saturdays are too unpredictable to schedule regular chores into.  They were always getting skipped!  Now Saturdays are catch up days.

So that leaves us five days.  Our "Daily" chores fit perfectly into our "Morning Routine" (covered here).  They are minor enough that the girls have a group of three to four per morning (it switches monthly) and mine are covered in my morning routine as well (make bed, pick up bedroom, start laundry etc.). 

Our "Weekly Chores" fit nicely into this slot right after school. 

6:00~ Mommy wakes up, makes bed, exercises, showers, time with the Lord, gets dressed, does hair and make-up.
7:00~ Breakfast helper wakes up to get a head start on their morning routine and then helps make and set the table for breakfast.
7:15~ All girls wake up, make beds, get dressed, get hair done.
7:30~ Breakfast
8:00~ Brush teeth, morning chores
8:30~ Bible
9:00~ School
11:00~ Weekly chores

It only takes us about 15-30 minutes to finish up our designated room for the day.  Mondays~ Living room.  Tuesdays~  Dining room.  Thursdays~ Bathroom.  And that's it!  Everything else falls either into daily or monthly chores OR our "focus work" which I'll get into later.
What continues to amaze me is how easy all of these chores remain when accomplished on a regular basis!  Even when a day gets skipped, there is always Saturday!  Even when Saturday gets skipped, there is always next week.  We are far from a well oiled machine here, but the progress that we've seen so far has been so encouraging!

(Please let me know if this does not make sense to you.  It's another sleepless night here for the rapidly rounding blogger and I would be happy to clarify anything!)