Many years ago I decided to write a newsletter for mothers. I was doing women's workshops and classes around Southern California, and some people had asked if I published anything. The other day I found the rough draft of the unpublished first edition's only article. It was all about chores and charts! After many years of making charts for our children, Karen and I had found what we thought was the ultimate chore chart and we wanted to share it.
PART OF THE ULTIMATE CHORE CHART ARTICLE:
Once a week I write out a list of jobs which need to be done besides the regulars chores the children do. My children and I all gather around the dining room table while I write these chores on a paper. I usually use colored pens and I sometimes draw pictures to go with each chore. I started doing this on my little children’s charts years ago because they couldn’t read. But my oldest children still enjoy watching me draw a picture of the job to be done. Next to the picture I write the name of the job. After all the chores are listed we all take turns choosing a job. Each of us chooses a different colored pen to write our initial next to the chore we have chosen. Usually everyone ends up with at least two chores.
Here are examples of the extra jobs:
- Cobwebs
- Windowsills
- Dusting
- Washing doors and walls
- Organizing a drawer or cupboard
- Refrigerator
[I found just a few of the symbols I used to draw for my children. I reproduced them here, though with not as much dexterity as in former years. I used to be able to draw an outline of a toilet really well!]
-prayer, vacuum, brush teeth, comb hair, clear the table, practice piano, practice violin-
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I do all of this work for my children just so I don’t have to nag them each morning, mealtime, or bedtime. “Say your prayers, make your bed, get dressed, brush your teeth, do your kitchen job, practice the piano…”
ANOTHER PART OF THE ARTICLE
Several years ago I told Hal that I didn’t feel right inside. I couldn’t understand it because, I told him, I was doing things I was supposed to do: pray, study scriptures, write in my journal, etc. I couldn't understand why I didn’t feel that I was accomplishing anything.
He asked if I was writing down all those things daily in my dayplanner and checking them off. I told him ‘no’ because they were already habits that I didn’t need to write down anymore. He thought that failure to write these tasks down and check them off each day was the reason why I didn’t feel that I was getting things done.
There is a euphoria which accompanies the act of checking things off a list. This physical action actually triggers endorphins in our brains—endorphins are the purest form of morphine which gives us a high or a naturally good feeling. Now I have the ease of the ULTIMATE CHORE CHART and the euphoria from moving my tasks over each day, without writing them down every day!!! What a feeling.
My children all love their charts. No, this is not a magical cure for getting your children to obey you, just a simple and fun way to help them learn how to do it.
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I don't have any photos or extant children's Ultimate Chore Charts, but I did keep mine. The children's charts had little hand-drawn photos of the things they were to do, Velcroed and laminated. There were two long strips of Velcro on each chart and the idea was to move everyone on the left over to the right strip of Velcro.
I kept my chore chart in my Franklin Dayplanner. On the left is my daily list and on the right is my weekly list. Seldom did all these tasks move from the left columns to the right, but they were there and reminded me what I wanted to get done.
Here's what it looked like in my dayplanner--
TIME MANAGEMENT
This is my philosophy about time management:
Dost thou love live?
Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
Benjamin Franklin
I taught time management classes informally to my children, and for church events, and for youth. When Amber and Jasmyn were still fairly young they wanted to try using Franklin Dayplanners too. I think they were 12 and 10 years old at the time and they loved them. I made a deal that if they actually used their planners, I would buy their refills every year. These became part of the school supplies that they were given.
I recently found some of the things I did before the ultimate chore chart was born.
Sometimes I made my own pages for my then half-size dayplanner. This was one of them:
For many years I organized my life by a theme Karen invented--heart, might, mind, strength.
Heart--things I do personally for myself so that I can serve my family with all my
Might--everything that encompasses my family and home, then on to
Mind--my children's education. After serving my family, then I could use my
Strength to serve others outside our family.
For many years I also wrote down all my tasks in four coordinating colors in my dayplanner. In just one glance I could see, by how much or how little color there was on the page, where I was accomplishing the most and if one area was suffering. It worked well for me and I used it for many years.
For several years many of the papers I made for organizing my home looked like a page out of Karen's Once Upon a Time clip art, as I used it on just about everything I put together. This is a grocery list--
Recently I saw this letter from Amber in which she share some of her feelings about doing chores as a child. When she had been married just one month she wrote home to Hal IV, Chase, Heather, and Giselle, (Jasmyn was away at school). She said I could share this part about doing chores at home:
The other day while I was cleaning the bathroom, I had a few thoughts I wanted to share mostly with Hal, Chase, Heather, and Giselle. I was scrubbing the toilet and floor and I started thinking back to when I used to clean the bathroom at home. I remember sometimes when mom would take me back in to look over my work. I remember that I thought Mom must just want to pick on me when she would make me clean it again. I remember how Mom used to stress that we should clean the back of the door and the baseboards. That sometimes made me mad. I remember a few times crying on the bathroom floor instead of cleaning because I thought it was not nice of Mom to make me stay in there until it was done ‘her way.’
The thoughts I had this time around were ‘What a wonderful Mom I have!’ She made sure that I could clean a bathroom really well and showed me that I would someday have to do it all on my own.’ Mom isn’t here with me now which means I have to clean the cobwebs, the baseboards, the doors and walls. I never realized how much Mom did until I had a house of my own that I have the sole responsibility of maintaining and keeping clean. Yes, Ben helps on the weekends occasionally, but he is studying so much, it’s mostly falling on me. How blessed I am that I don’t have to figure it all out on my own. Because I’ve been cleaning my whole life, it doesn’t bother me! It feels really natural and I can whistle while I do it because I’m SO grateful to my Mom!
Actually, Amber didn't read this before I printed it, but she gave me permission to use it as long as it didn't make fun of her or anyone else. I told her that it highlighted something I was writing about anyway, and it just happened to make me look good. Yes, I was a sergeant major at times when it came to household chores, but parenting isn't a popularity contest, so, thank you Amber! I feel vindicated.
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