Our previous chore charts had four separate sections: my body, my home, my testimony and my brain. Each category had different chores and/or goals to work on during the day, but after starting homeschool, some of the categories were redundant.
Combine that with the annual goals we make (we sit down together every January and talk about what we want to work on and get accomplished during the year in different aspects of our lives) and then hardly talk about afterwards and I knew I needed to revamp my system. I just wasn't sure how.
After reading that Gretchen Rubin's most successful part of her Happiness Project (no, I swear I'm not a stalker...it just seems like it recently) was her resolutions chart I got excited. After checking it out, I finally had my plan.
I combined my favorite parts of both charts and came up with this. I think it turned out pretty good (although the real test will be over the next few weeks as we're using them). Our previous charts were weekly and I felt like I was using (wasting) way too much paper, thus the new ones are monthly (let's just hope we don't lose them). I broke our chart up into three sections, the first two bringing in all the items we still need from the previous chore charts but organized in a way that makes better sense for us now.
The first section includes all the things that they should (ideally) get done before our 8:30am school start time. But if they somehow don't get to all of it (read imagining slight sarcasm and a loving/exasperated smile), it needs to be done before they can play.
The second section says before the end of the day and really means sometime before bedtime.
The last section is another addition/change from our old chore charts and probably the part I'm most excited about. We now have a place for some of those annual goals, not to mark when they're done, but to keep track of how often we're actually working on them. To track our progress. Plus, as we set family goals (which we've started doing a few times a month) we can write them in so we don't forget about them in the hustle and bustle of life. I purposefully didn't type these in because I'm thinking they'll change depending on what each child is working on that month.
This is B's chore chart (you might have already noticed), but each of my kid's charts looks very similar. The differences are in exactly which cleaning chores they are currently assigned to do.
I was thinking I'd even have them make different marks to check them off depending on how well (attitude mostly) they get their chores done. Then at the end of the month, we can look back and see what progress has been made, which is the best part.
I'll keep you updated on how well they're working out for us!
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