TWO TYPES OF WORK
Managing a home requires two types of work: Daily Operations (i.e., chores) and Projects. The purpose of doing Daily Operations is to maintain your home at its current level of cleanliness, order, effectiveness and beauty. The purpose of a Project is to somehow make the future better.
PROJECTS HAVE A BEGINNING AND AN END. DAILY OPERATIONS DON’T.
There’s a reason why daily housework has been described as “Stringing beads with no knot at the end.” Redoing your bathroom is a Project. Keeping your bathroom clean on a daily and weekly basis is Daily Operations. Projects require extra resources (time, energy, money) to get done. Daily Operations use about the same amount of resources on a daily, weekly or monthly basis to keep the home functioning fairly decently. Every business has to manage these two types of work and, as a homemaker, so do you.
THE PROBLEM WITH DAILY OPERATIONS
The problem with Daily Operations tasks (chores) is that they can often be boring. You have to do them everyday and they can often be “mindless” tasks, such as cleaning toilets or folding laundry. For this reason, it’s tempting to do “avoidance behavior” and put these tasks or chores off.
Don’t!
It’s far better to do a little bit of work every day than to put it off and put it off until you have, for example, “The Himalayas” (i.e. mountains of dirty clothes) piled in your laundry room or revolting crud all over your toilet. Now your Daily Operations tasks–that would have normally required the equivalent of about 30-60 minutes of work–have become Projects requiring a huge amount of personal resources to complete.
HOW TO MAKE DAILY OPERATIONS EASIER
What makes Daily Operations tasks easier? Effective systems and routines that reduce the amount of thinking, energy, and time needed to do the daily chores. One of the best tools you can use for this type of work is a Master Chore Chart.
So here’s your project that will make the future better:
- Print the chore chart you see below and put it on your fridge.
- Then do the tasks listed on the chore chart for each day. Don’t think about it. Just do it. In fact, turn it into a game by seeing how fast you can get done with the list. Win! Win! Win!
I promise you, that if you will follow this chart every day (or almost every day), not only will the condition of your home environment gradually improve (and the time you take cleaning gradually decrease), but you’ll enjoy your home so more and function far better in your space.
…and that’s a good thing.
The Homemaker’s Coach–Master Chore Chart
