I admit that I have been pretty lax with giving my children consistent chores to do around the house. The reasons are many, but I have decided that it is time that they take on more responsibility. And I can certainly use the help getting this place organized. Since we have some time this summer I have decided to use Microsoft Office to create a chore chart that we can refer to from day to day. I am going to hang it on the door of the pantry.
Of course I will probably still do a lot of the heavy chores myself. But, you know what they say… if you are consistent about picking up after yourself from day to you, you will never have a messy house! Oh if only I could abide by this! At the end of each day I am usually completely exhausted and just happy to send the kids to bed so that I can lay down myself. However, I am on a real mission to use the rest of this summer to get our home more organized. To do this, I need help. I am starting by making a quick list of things that should be done from day to day.
- Clean up toys, blankets, and game controllers on the Family Room floor: This is just for my boys. Enough said.
- Sweep kitchen floor: I believe this task will go to Kristopher who drops the most crumbs on the floor.
- Check each bedroom for dirty laundry: Kids (ok, grownups too), have a magical way of changing clothes in a hurry and just dropping their clothes were they stand. This drives me crazy when I get ready to do laundry because I then find dirty clothes after I have finished washing my last load. Of course we teach “put it in the hamper as soon as you take it off”, but *surprisingly* some stuff still does not make it there.
- Gather your own belongings from around the house: Having 4 kids means lots of random toys, gadgets, books, and other things taking over the house. If everyone (adults included) collects their stuff at the end of each night before bed, there is less work to do the next day.
- Washing the Dishes: I have a dishwasher, but thanks to a water softener unit that is on the fritz I have not used my dishwasher in a while. I have gone back to mostly washing dishes by hand (Booo!!!). And I admit that at the end of a long night the LAST thing that I want to do is wash dishes! I envy those who have the energy and time to clear their sink each evening because they have a policy of not going to bed with dirty dishes in the sink. It must be so nice to be you. 😀 I hope to make sure that going forward we wash all dishes before hitting the sack. Actually doing some throughout the day may be easier to deal with. With a household of 6 people there can be a lot of dishes. This is the biggest struggle in my home. Tackling this one will make me feel really good. And… I need to get my water softener serviced asap.
These are just a few of the things that I want to address on my chart. I’m sure that I can think of many, many other things! With 4 kids, it should not be too hard to evenly distribute the chores. I just need to way to lay it out.
Instead of starting from scratch I decided to check Microsoft Office to see if there was already a template for a Chore Chart that I could customize. I love that the search function in any of the Office apps searches across the full suite and the web directory of thousands of templates to find just what you need. I opened up Microsoft Word on my PC. I clicked on New and typed “Chores” in the “Search for online templates” box. I hit the jackpot right away! The first Family Chore Chart template for Microsoft Word that popped up is just what I need.
The search also found similar charts for use in Excel and MS Access.
There is even a House Cleaning Checklist that I decided to use. So helpful! Once I decided on the Family Chore Chart I clicked on Create to use the template to create a new document.
Once you have created the document you can simply type in fields. And since it’s a Word document you can change fonts, colors, titles, or whatever. Or consider printing and laminating your chore chart, and then using a dry erase marker to write on it. You can then easily erase names if you need to rearrange the chore list.
The Family Chore Template is just one of the thousands of templates available in Microsoft Office to help you get things done, organize your life, and make it look good while doing so.
Happy Cleaning!
Disclosure: This post is part of my involvement as a Microsoft Office Champions. All opinions are my own.
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