It is not uncommon for couples to have a disagreement on who should be responsible for which home chores.
But with the seven tips below, you can divide the household chores with nary an argument.
Let’s take a look:
- Create a list of all the tasks that need to be done around the house and assign them to each partner. Think, for example, in terms of categories such as windows, pantry, kitchen cabinets, closets, bed, pillows, floors, dishwasher, etc.
- Decide on a schedule for each partner and stick to it as much as possible. This will help you avoid last minute scrambles and ensure that one partner doesn’t do all of the work while the other one sits back and relaxes.
- Try doing some household chores together as a couple; this will encourage communication between partners, and make both feel valued in their roles around the house.
- Determine which tasks you can have done by outside services (such as a cleaning person), or perhaps shared with another household, such as lawn care or cleaning the common areas. In other words, give yourselves a break from your already (very) busy lives.
- Divide the tasks according to who is most likely to enjoy them or do them well, so that everyone has more enjoyable tasks that are aligned with their interests (inasmuch as this is possible).
- Decide on a time frame for completing each task, so that everyone can manage their time better and not feel overwhelmed with too many chores at one time.
- Sort the chores by level of difficulty: for example, dishwashing is usually considered an easy task, while vacuuming is more effortful and takes longer.
Conclusion: a sound way to manage the household chores fairly
In a perfect world, we would all have the time to clean the house, do the laundry, and cook dinner every day.
But in reality, most of us have a lot of other things to take care of on top of our regular jobs.
Keeping house, then, is almost necessarily low on the list.
So it doesn’t matter if you’re living with roommates or just your significant other — everyone should contribute to keeping the house running smoothly.
And when that happens, everyone wins.
Check out these other articles about maintaining domestic bliss:
- How to introduce a new cat or dog to your home in 6 easy steps. The process isn’t nearly as difficult as people make it out to be!
- How many calories does housework burn? In some cases, as many as jogging!
- Arguing about the worst household chores? These 7 tips will help you divide them fairly.
Photo: by Towfiqu Barbhuiya via Unsplash
