Jobs, jobs, jobs

Recently some friends asked to see some of my job lists. I had posted a photo of my funny son's comment which he wrote on his job list for the week. I had unintentionally left a blank spot and he filled it in with his awesomeness.

Anyways, I absolutely LOVE a good job chart. Detailed job charts make me happy, because once it's written out and assigned, then I can forget about it. Of course, a good job chart is all in the details. How detailed you make it depends on the kids being assigned the job. The other thing I love about detailed lists, is that I don't usually enter the assigned cleaning area and have to say "You call this job done?" Because, as long as every thing is checked, then their job is done.

So, I have so many different lists. Here are a few (and really, this is only a fraction of the lists on my computer).

Here's a sample weekend list:

Daily plus Saturday List
Another Random Chore List

Here's one that includes the little kids. You might notice that the little ones' jobs are written in German, but the big kids' jobs are in English (that's just how things roll in our home). I usually cut the list up and give each kid his own portion.

Another job list

Some mornings, I'm feeling overwhelmed with everything I need to get done. So I just start writing everything down at the top of a page. Then I take some of those things and start divvying out chores to the kids. Once I do that, then I start feeling less overwhelmed. Often, I'll let the kids pick which ones they want.
Fill in the Blank

I did want to mention how I often divide chores. Actually "doing" your chores is not an option, but you do have an option as to which chores you do. So, I often whistle and announce quite loudly (so that everyone can hear) that I'm about to hand out chores. The first person to arrive gets to pick first. This ensures that the kids usually hurry as fast as they can so that they can get the first pick.

Here are my some of my favorite lists. These are the Company Clean lists. I pull them out when we're expecting company. We were expecting company this past Sunday, so on the previous Sunday (during our family council meeting), I printed out the lists and let the kids choose which ones they wanted to do. I LOVE these, because they have actual check boxes in front of each item (I don't think the check boxes show up in the Google Docs). They're also fairly detailed. I hang them up in the assigned area, where I can see them. I usually give them a few days to complete them (this is usually in addition to their daily kitchen jobs...I'll do another post on Kitchen Jobs...because that's a whole other topic). Anyways, I like to see them making progress. I remind them during the week to check off a few things each day. As I walk through the house, I can see who has been checking off their boxes.

Company Clean Family Room
Company Clean Kitchen
Company Clean Living and Dining
Company Clean Laundry and Mudroom
Company Clean Outside Jobs
Company Clean Upstairs and Kids' Bath

Sometimes, instead of lists, we call them tickets. We used to do "job tickets" all the time. The deal was that we had some reward at the end of the day and that in order to take part in that reward, you had to turn in your job ticket. I don't have very many of these on the computer, since I usually just wrote them on 3x5 cards. But here's one example that I found:
Job Tickets

I also had another kind of ticket. These were "pay jobs" that the kids bid on at the beginning of the summer. I would give it to the kid who bid for the least amount of money and who promised to do it by a certain date. Here's a list of our job auction items from a few years back:

Pay Jobs