My Top Tip for Saving Time on Chores

I had to chuckle at the title of this blog post prompt. This is one area that I feel like I’m constantly just in maintenance mode! My kids are still at the ages where they create a lot of messes, and with four of them vs. one of me…I often feel like I’m picking up the same couch throw pillows 78798 times a day. Plus, we live on a homestead and heat primarily with wood, which adds a lot of chores to our plates!

So, before you hear my tip(s)…just know that my house is NOT perfectly ordered, nor do I feel like I have a good grasp on staying on top of cores. Some days are great, and some days feel like mass chaos.

But here is my top tip for saving time on chores: everyone participates. Yes, I do the bulk of household/animal chores, but we have a hard and fast rule in our home that since we all live here, we all do chores.

We explain to our kids that if one person has to do all the chores, it would probably take 3 hours. But if 5 or 6 people do the same amount of work, working together, it will take less than half an hour!

Here is what a typical chore day looks like in our household:

Morning- Kids need to make beds, get dressed, and brush teeth. They also work on homeschool on M, W, F and I consider this their “job”. I will also make my bed, clean up from breakfast, do any baking that needs to be done, and try to keep up on “as needed” chores.

Afternoon– Around 3 or 4 we do animal chores. In the spring/summer/fall, this means pigs, sheep, bunnies, chickens and cats need food and water. Someone takes out the compost.

Once Theo texts that he is on his way home from work (he has about a 40 minute commute), we start on our afternoon chores of cleaning up and resetting the house. The kids work on this while I make dinner and wash all the days dishes piled in the sink.

Evening- After dinner, we do dishes, one load of laundry and sweep/mop or vacuum any floors that need done. The kids each have one of those chores and rotate weekly. Theo and I put away the food and help wash the pots and pans.

Throughout the day: General upkeep, I fold laundry about twice a week and everyone puts their own clothes away, keeping the fire going, tidy up big messes, etc.

As Needed: Honestly, there are so many great Pinterest graphics out there about which chores should be done daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. I live by a completely different philosophy: do the chores on an “as-needed” basis. This applies to cleaning the bathrooms, dusting, folding/putting away laundry, changing sheets, vacuuming carpets, cleaning mirrors and windows, etc. When it needs to be done, we do it. Vacuuming the living room carpet happens every day in the winter, but in the summer it’s needed less often. The bathrooms need to be cleaned at least once a week, but sometimes it happens twice a week and sometimes it happens (gasp) every other week.

Chore Charts and Systems

Now, with the amount of people in my house and the amount of chores that we have to do, you would think that I would have some great kind of chore chart or system. But the truth is…I don’t! And this is actually intentional. Sure, the kids each have an assigned evening chore each week. But other than that, I want my kids to learn and understand that if there is a chore to be done, we should be doing it. Not pointing fingers at someone else who’s “turn” or “zone” it is. I know that these systems work great for other families, but we found that we would rather just teach our kids to find what needs to be done, and do it. Or we all work together to get all the chores done. We often tell the kids on movie nights or before we do something fun that we all have to do the chores before we can do the fun thing.

Here are some ways I break it down so everyone can participate:

• I will set a timer and we race to see if we can beat it
• I will assign zones to clean up, where each kids works on a zone. Tera- bedrooms, Kiah- living room, Ezra- toy room
• I will pick a toy and say whoever cleans up that toy/object gets 25c. Nobody know what the toy/object is, so they are all frantically cleaning it all.
• I will ask kids to pick up categories of things: Tera, you pick up all the books in the house. Kiah, you pick up all the legos in the house. Ezra, you pick up all the shoes and put them away properly on the shoe shelf.
• We try to switch up animal chores, too, so that everyone practices how to feed each animal.
• Sometimes I will write every single little chore that needs to be done on tiny strips of paper. Everyone draws a paper and does that chore until all the chores are finished.

Final Thoughts on Chores

I think that doing chores is really important for kids. It sends a message that they are a vital and valuable part of the family. It teaches them a hard work ethic and it teaches them so many practical life skills! I get first graders in my classroom who have never even held a broom before, and this shocks me because it’s such an easy and important skill that everyone should know how to do!

On that note, kids do need to see us doing chores! We can’t just sit around all day and direct them to do all the work. It should be seen as a team sport- where everyone participates according to their age and ability level.

If you are a new Mom starting out, I recommend that you don’t do chores while the kids are resting or having downtime. Instead, do chores with the kids. Yes, it takes forever. But, pretty soon they will start being able to do the chore on their own. And that is incredibly useful down the road! Use downtime or resttime to also rest or do something that you enjoy!

And my last piece of advice is to start chores as young as possible. It’s honestly easier to get my 22 month old to do chores than my 10 year old! The younger we start them, the more chores just become a part of life and a reasonable expectation for everyone to participate!

I’m linking up with the Share our Lives linkup! Go check out the other bloggers to read all about what they do for chores!