Flexible Chore Charts

Back when school was about to start, I was sitting in my hairdresser's chair, waiting for her to finish working her magic, when I started lamenting about our chore charts and how the system just wasn't working for me anymore. Okay, I was whining. Is that better?

I've told you that my hairdresser is a magician, so I was very interested to hear what she had to say about chores. Lucky for me, she had a lot to say. We got into a big discussion about how we were tired of nagging our kids to finish their chores. To just stay focused long enough to get them done. Stop beating a dead horse and do the ding dang chore so you can ding dang play before you leave for college, PUH-lease!

I'm sure you are familiar with the scenario.

The Magician shared with me how she revamped her whole system by assigning just one chore to each kid per day. Every Monday they had the same chore. Every Tuesday they had the same chore, and so on. I was desperate and willing to try anything, so the schedule you see above is what we came up with. And guess what? It worked.

Mostly. I really like that there is just one chore to focus on because the kids aren't overwhelmed with a ginormous list. Now, they are still responsible for other "procedures" as I like to call them. Sneaky, yes, but that's what us moms are paid to be, aren't we? Oh wait. There is no pay.

All the more reason for us to do whatever the heck we want to do. My house is a small country and I am the Queen, and all that jazz. 

The "procedures" I'm talking about (by the way, snarky air quotes are required) are making the bed, picking up after yourself, brushing your teeth, etc. Basically, whatever I say they are, on any given day. I just point at the kid, say do blah-blah (please) and it is a "procedure," not a chore. Also, Saturdays, which are my cleaning days, they must be available to assist me at a moments notice. I make it a rule to never bend over to pick up anything that I didn't put on the floor, so it's mostly that sort of thing. "Pick up that creepy looking horse or I'm going to suck it up in the vacuum cleaner. Head first."

It works for me.

The nifty thing is that the kids are not doing fewer chores, but they think they are doing fewer chores.

The only part of this system that didn't work long term for us, was the same chore on the same day part. The problem is that some days we aren't home long enough to do even the one chore. Every week is different because there's always something going on it seems. It's probably like this for everyone, right?

Anyway, I've been thinking and thinking and thinking about how I can improve this system, and I came up with this.

You know how I love me some magnets, right? Well, couple that will some jumbo popsicle sticks, a little pretty paper, and some Mod Podge, and we're in business. They are very simple, but they are versatile.

Our chore charts have always had a home on the side of our fridge, so that part is still the same. Now each chore is on it's own popsicle stick under the responsible party's magnet face. We started with the three chores above, that each of the girls have to do at least once a week. Next, they took turns picking their chores.

These are the chores I gave them to pick from this go 'round. Aren't they lucky?

After they chose their chores, I moved them around a little bit so they wouldn't both get scoop litterbox on the same day. That would be a waste of a perfectly good chore, don't you think?

As you can see, our chores aren't tied to specific days, but instead we will rotate them in order. If we are home and the chore can be completed, as decided by myself and my mood of the moment, then each child will do the chore on top, then rotate it to the bottom of their stack. This way things still get done on a regular basis, but maybe not on June Cleaver's schedule.

Also, we can trade chores when they get tired of the chores they picked. We like to mix things up to keep them fun. Because chores are so fun.

I'm really excited about the 10-minute timed family pick-up. We've never done this one before, but I have high hopes for it. The idea is to set the timer for 10 minutes, and everyone runs around and tries to pick up and clean as much as they can before the timer goes off. Doesn't it sound like fun?

Okay, pretend then.

Here's the other part of the chore system that the Magician gave me. When the girls finish their chores they come to me to get a token, which is simply a poker chip. If they forget, the token is forfeited. This puts the pay out on them, and let me tell you, this is really working for me. Before, I felt like every time I turned around I was handing out allowance and printing out new chore charts. Now, I have more cash because they hardly ever remember. Not that I should be cheating my kids or anything like that, but I'm teaching responsibility, right? If you don't punch your timecard, you don't get a paycheck, right?

Do people even still use timecards? Did I just totally date myself? Let me guess, hourly wage earners are microchipped and as soon as they walk into the building, their time is noted by a computer off site, and their paycheck is delivered electronically to their bank without them ever knowing how it was calculated? Do I watch too much Sci-Fi?

Anyway, as I was saying, the poker chips are worth 25 cents each. They can't cash them in until they have $5 worth collected. Then I take 20% off the top for charity and savings.

The tokens also work great for bribing consequences. I can take them away if the girls misbehave, or I have to ask them more than once to do something, or not do something, whatever the case may be. I have to tell you also, they think the tokens are pretty cool. Losing a token is a big deal around here.

And it makes me feel powerful. Which I love.

I also put the tokens into play to curb some other undesirable habits, shall we say.

For example, if Annika gets up in the morning the first time we ask her, and she gets dressed, brushes her teeth, etc., the first time we ask her, she gets a token. If she doesn't, not only does she not get a token, but she can lose tokens if we have to ask her to get her gnarly carcass out of bed repeatedly.

For Zoe, if she wakes up without her hair looking like this,

she earns a token. If she wakes up and it does look like this, she can still earn a token if she takes care of it by herself. For example, like this:

Hey, whatever simplifies things for me, that's what works around here. I've had to work very hard at relaxing my standards.

Back-to-School Preparations

I'm sure that, like me, you noticed the stores filling with school supplies mid-July, and all the back-to-school sales cropping up. It's exciting in a way, I mean who doesn't like school supplies, but also depressing at the same time. Don't pop the bubble that is my summer vacation, PUH-leez.

Well, like it or not, it's that time, time for us to start thinking about getting the kids, and ourselves, back into the school routine. For me, the best way to get in the mood is to go shopping for school supplies.

I've been thinking about revamping my School Clothes Shopping Check List, and I came up with the idea to make a School Supply Shopping Checklist. The thing I loathe about shopping for school supplies is having multiple lists to shop from. And I only have two kids! What must it be like for those of you with six kids? It's enough to make me want to bury my head in the sand.

Anyway, I came up with this solution to the confusion of shopping with multiple lists.

I took my girls' separate lists for school supplies, and I combined them into one list. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner, being a lover of spread sheets and all.

Click on the picture if you need a closer look, but the idea is to write your kids' names across the columns at the top, and write the supplies they need along the left side. Then you just fill in the number that each kid needs, make a total column if you don't need that column for a seventh kid, write down what you have already, and come up with a total for each of the items you need to buy.

Pretty simple, right?

Here's a blank one for you. Just be sure to click on it first in order to get the best resolution, before you save it to your computer.

And here's the revamped School Clothes Shopping Check List. This one has enough room for two kids. If you have more than two kids, you'll have to print out more copies. Sorry about that.

Have fun shopping!

Get Your Spring On!

I've been in a bit of a funk lately. Too much to do, not enough time for fun, and summer vacation waaaaaay too far away. Spring break is right around the corner though, and I'm hoping to get my spring on, do a little recuperating, and find some time to blog hop and get inspired. I need that.

Have you been in the stores lately and noticed all the gorgeous spring stuff out? It puts me in a summer clothes shopping mood, so I decided to whip this baby up. One of my goals for spring break is to empty out the girls' closets and figure out what they have and what they need for spring and summer, and this list is going to help me do that.

If you're in need of some warmer weather clothes shopping, click on the list to get the best resolution, save it to your hard drive, and print it out as an 8-1/2 x 11 page on plain white paper. Set your printer up to print a borderless image and you'll get the best results. Enjoy!

Another Problem Solved

I'm so excited to share this new thing with you, I can barely contain myself.

SCREECH . .. . SQUEAL . . . . EEEEEEEE.

Sorry. I tried to hold it in, but I have no self control.

Okay, last school year I made up this little grid doo dad in Excel. A little mini spreadsheet so to speak, that I kept on the fridge. In the mornings I could look at the day of the week to remind the girls and myself of recurring weekly things that we had to remember stuff for.  If it's a P.E. day, no dangly earrings, skirts or clunky shoes. Show & Tell, don't forget it. Spelling test day, we can take a quick test while we're eating breakfast. You get the idea.

It's something I used every day last year and it really helped me.

Um, but it's not cute, right? I like cute. 

So, I've been obsessing over this little thing and how I could put it right by my front door so it would be even more helpful, but how could I make it cute? Seriously, this is the kind of ridiculousness that takes up valuable space in my head.

And if I want to get it out, if I want to purge it, I have to satisfy the need. Right?

Now that we're all on board, take one more look at my little mini spreadsheet and then go here and come right back, okay?

Can you believe that? I love it! It's brilliant. It's exactly what I was looking for. And dang it all, the blog I found this on, The Idea Room, has some excellent ideas on it. And I needed another blog to follow like I need a hole in my head. Great.

So, super nifty idea, right? Except that in my world I want some cute to go with my spread sheet. At least for this. Because I'm going to be altering the magnetic board anyway, right?

Oh yeah. I didn't tell you about that yet. I already had this tired old magnetic board that really wasn't being used to the best of it's ability, so I stripped all that stuff off, pried the sunflowers and clothespins off, gave it a quick coat of black paint to cover up the words, and then I turned it into this.

Isn't it great? I'm so excited I can't even stand it. The second it was finished, at 1:00 a.m. this morning, I woke Peanut Head up and demanded that he hang it up for me ASAP.

He declined.

So, here's what I did to pull the vision together. I put a thin coat of Modge Podge on the sheet metal, then I smoothed scrapbook paper down. Then I covered it all with a thin coat of Modge Podge on top. In this picture you see bubbles, but I cursed those bubbles and smooshed them down so they vacated pronto. Well, after the Modge Podge dried, or at least some time during the drying process. I don't need to know the science behind it. It's magic.

Once the Modge Podge dried a little, I couldn't wait for it to dry completely, I put some Photo Tape on a couple pieces of gross grain ribbon and I adhered them over the seams where the different pieces of paper met. The ribbon makes a nice divider for the sections of my board.

Then I put the girls' names down, which I cut with my Cricut that I'm in love with, and I printed out a couple of cute pictures. It was Janae's brilliant idea to attach magnets to the backs of the pictures so I could change them out as the girls grow. How cool is that?

I made my days of the week and my things to remember in Excel. I did them in Excel because a) I love Excel and b) I could do them quickly and add the uniform borders super fast. Hey, you use what you know, right? I'm sure there are other ways to do it, but this is what I did. Just call me Spreadsheet Girl.

I printed my reminders on plain white paper and then I cut them out, leaving a smallish border around the black line border.

Then I laminated them, of course. And the best part? I gathered up all those cheapo, I mean free, magnets that I've collected from phone books and businesses, and I cut them up to turn my reminders into magnets.

Crazy, isn't it? I love crazy.

I was able to get five magnets out of one business card sized magnet. The odd size magnets like the trash truck, not so much. But that's okay because they were free.

Next I applied tape runner to the backs of the magnets and stuck them on the backs of my laminated reminders that I cut apart and trimmed.

And TA-DA! Brilliant, huh? This is what I love, love, love about reading other people's blogs. I find some of the coolest ideas and I get so much inspiration from people in the blogosphere.

And now I've solved another one of my Great-System-But-It's-Not-Cute dilemmas.

Is there a support group out there for that? Maybe with the name Freaks of the World Unite or something catchy like that.

Here's my new magnet board in its new home, right behind my front door. I so love it. Go ahead, tell me I'm a freak. I can take it.

Spring Cleaning Giveaway Winner

Wow! This contest resulted in the most comments I've ever had on this blog. Maybe I should do this type of thing more often, eh?

I don't want to torture you so I'm going to go ahead and just tell you. The winner of the Spring Clean Year 'Round box is 

 #47 -  Shiloh and Bob Willey

E-mail me at Jillderbeast@cableone.net to give me your address. Congratulations!

Now, a couple of you suggested that Ter should win because she's had such a rough year. Since I can't, in good conscience, rig the contest, I decided to make her a little box of her own.

What do you think? It's smaller than the Spring Clean Year 'Round box and it's not the same. I've made different chore cards because, again, in good conscience I couldn't just copy the original since it is something I purchased. My intent in holding this little contest was to support another work-at-home mom and share a great little system with you.

Yikes! They multiplied. You can't put those dang boxes together because they just can't behave.

Actually, I figured since I was going to be making one anyway, I might as well kill two birds with one stone and make one for one of my contest winners from this post. 

So, one of these boxes is for Ter from Canada, and the other one is for Amanda of Another Day in Diaperland.

Please e-mail me at Jillderbeast@cableone.net with your addresses. Congratulations.

Here's a little peek inside the boxes I made. The chore cards are small, 2" x 4" but I think they are plenty big for their jobs.

Before I found Travis' Spring Clean Year 'Round system, I had a system of my own that wasn't working very well. It was the same general idea as the Spring Clean system, but it wasn't cute. I think because it wasn't cute, I didn't keep it out in plain view, so I didn't  use it. I also had tried the Fly Lady System, but I just couldn't stay on top of it during busier days and weeks, so I found that it wasn't flexible enough for me. Plus, I need another e-mail in my in box like I need a hole in my head. Plus, plus, I find her website incredibly confusing. Granted it's probably just because of my rabid Chihuahua attention span, but still.

I like spread sheets and all, so my skills are limited.

So, what I really like about the Spring Clean Year 'Round system is the flexibility. If you can't get to a chore on the day you had planned, you just move it to the next day when you think you will be able to get to it. You might think that it's just enabling procrastination, (my friend) but I've found that isn't the case. I have all my chores in one place now, written down, and I know that I have them scheduled so I don't have to be overwhelmed by thinking about the big picture and everything I have yet to do. I just focus on today with the knowledge that I will get to the other stuff, just not today. It's liberating.

So, having a peek at this Spring Cleaning system and getting some inspiration, I've had another go at my own system and spiffed it up a bit.

I used a rotary Rolodex for mine because of that rabid Chihuahua thing again. I tend to rush around, and as a result I'm always dropping things and knocking things over. This way, my chores are anchored so I don't 52 Pickup them all the time. Remember that game? It's a hoot. Not.

Can I just tell you how much fun I did not have making the Rolodex divider cards. It took FOR-EVER. The picture above is the smart way, with the exception of the pain in the rear tabs and that I don't think I would use staples again. I would just stick them on with my Tape Runner.

See, when I started making my own dividers, I had to cut out all those little notches with little itty bitty scissors.

And as I mentioned, the tabs were a whole 'nother problem. 

Until I got this from Melanie-Who-I-Almost-Killed-With-Pie.

It's a Round Tab Punch. I could have used this thing years ago and I'm so happy it lives at my house now.

Watch this . . . I punch my tab out . . .

Fold it in half and put some adhesive on the inside, and then sandwich my piece of divider card stock between it.

TA-DA!

I digitally scrapbooked my chores. Of course. I put three to a 4x6 print and uploaded them to my local photo center. By printing them at a photo center, I save my own printer ink and I get a much better quality print. Waaaaaay better. And I even have a decent photo printer.

Then I just cut the chores apart.

Round the top corners so I won't stab my rabid Chihuahua fingers.

Then I used way more Tape Runner than I really needed on an actual Rododex card. I adhered my chore cards this way so that I wouldn't have to cut out all those dang Rolodex notches. I'm a cheater, and I never want to do that again.

Then I carefully lined up my chore on the Rolodex card. Some of them aren't super perfect.

And here are some of my chores.

I want you to know that I'm going to try to turn over a new leaf and dust more than my once a year whether it needs it or not system. But still, one room a week is my limit. 

I just thought this one up yesterday. It's one of those things that I'm always noticing and thinking I should do, but I just never get around to it. Now there's hope.

I have chore cards for cleaning the toilets once a week and the sinks and counters too, but this one is for all the rest of the bathroom. My goal is to not need a Hazmat suit to clean the bathrooms in the future.

I even made some blank cards for additional chores that I think up. I could go to Fly Lady to look for more, but I figure I'll start with this and add them as I need to.

Like this. I was filling the cat water yesterday and realized that this needed to be a chore. I just wrote it on there with a Fine-Point Sharpie.

If you want to purchase the Spring Clean Year 'Round system, click on the link and go get yourself one. They're $30 plus shipping.

So who's in the mood to clean now? Me neither.

Maybe after I finish off that box of Bon Bons that Peanut Head thinks I eat all day watching soaps while he's at work. He has no idea.