8.28.2008

Family Task Sharing Spreadsheet

Family Task Sharing Spreadsheet

You know how you read those articles about relationships and happiness. Besides money, the hottest-topic in long-term relationships tends to be chores-- or more simply who does what and am i being taken advantage of. I think like 98% of most American families, I do more than JT when it comes down to it. There are some (recently written about in a NY Times article) that absolutely won't stand for any inequality. I'd say honestly the rest of us are just trying to find something that feels "about right" without having to discuss every last detail of cat box duty.

That said, we recently had a conversation about household duties around our homestead and rejiggered our tasks. Of course i made a spreadsheet, and in an attempt to share all of the organizational resources i can't resist building-- i'm adding this task chart to the public domain. It's a simple spreadsheet that one could modify at will in excel. Tasks run down the first column, and the frequency with which each partner performs each task is noted in the subsequent columns. It's only slightly complex in that instead of just checking off who does what, it ask partners to rate the frequency with which they do a task, i.e. multiple times a day, weekly, or just periodically. The idea being that it's not much of a balance if partner one does 10 tasks periodically and partner 2 does 10 tasks multiple times a day. It doesn't get in to assigning hours to tasks because i don't think many couples have two partners that would willingly agree to that exercise.

The formulas give you a quick overview of how many tasks each partner does, as well as the breakdown in task frequency. You can add columns as the number of household members increased that were doing chores, i.e, once the boys can mow the lawn, and you can change/add/delete the actual list of tasks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yikes, just putting it out there for all to see who does what huh? I could never stand the ridicule if I put down in black and white what I do versus the better half! I like your comment about just trying to find that happy medium where each is doing those things they "don't mind" and it feels about right rather than making a big deal about it. I know in our household for many years we sort of settled on an I do the outside stuff(mowing, edging, fertilizing, weed spraying, raking, mulching, repairing, staining the deck, cleaning the gutters, cutting down limbs etc. While the inside washing, folding, ironing, cleaning, vacuuming shopping and much much more was done by the other half. We have gravitated toward more of I still do the outside stuff though a bit less and now help with cooking, washing and doing the dishes. If we believe in karma in all works out in the end anyway, right?

Anonymous said...

I'm testing-- how does it work to post comments annonymously?