The Kitchen Book - Section Two

Section Two looks small, but it's not...not really...and this is a big part of what needed some help in our lives.
Housework. Chores. Whatever you call it. I don't particularly enjoy doing it, but I like lists, so I'm happier to do it if I can cross it off a list.

At the front of this section is a list of all the jobs and when they need to be done. This is for easy reference. Because not all of the pages in this section live in the book.
As you can see, there's a note that says "charts inside cupboard." That's because we had tried it one way and that didn't work for us (but it might work for you so I've included it here) so we're trying it a different way that involved the cupboard.
We used to print a week's worth of these, three-hole punch them and put them in the binder. Then we'd check off our jobs as they got done. But we didn't always check them off. So sometimes things got done twice. Which isn't an issue except that it's a bit of a waste of time. The reason we wanted an easy to see visual is because Alex often works nights, so I can't just ask him if he already mopped the floor while we were at work and daycare. For example.

The nice thing about printing this every week was that we could modify it when Alex worked a different shift or if we were going away or one of us was going away or something.

But we're lazy/can't be bothered/too busy/always forgetting to open the book and tick things off.

So we've moved on to these two charts which are taped inside a kitchen cabinet and last for about a month. Extras (with new dates) are stored in a sheet protector after the list of chores.
This is the stuff we have to do everyday. Some of it should be obvious - like whether or not the beds get made, but some of it isn't always that clear. We have wooden floors and a toddler. The colour coding is just to give a visual break between morning, after work and after J goes to bed jobs. It doesn't mean that the dishes HAVE to be done before J goes to bed. Honestly, most nights it's easier to wait.
These are the weekly jobs (the ones that usually moved around with Alex's schedule, but whatever). In the old system if a job didn't get done, one of us just wrote it on the next day's sheet to remind us it to do it that day (if we remembered). There's no rewriting with this system, but it's pretty obviously when a job gets missed.

I think we're going to add a monthly list to - things like pulling out the stove and vacuuming behind it and washing down the sides or wiping the fronts of all the cabinets and flipping the mattress.

I got the idea for these charts from the charts that lived in the staff laundry room at Pax Lodge. We had weekly, monthly and quarterly jobs there and because there was a volunteer staff of seven with a change over of 1-3 people every month, they needed a system like this! Thanks Pax Lodge - you still influence my life on an almost daily basis!