01
Inventory only shared work
Walk room by room and list the outcome everyone depends on. Personal bedrooms, personal dishes, and individual laundry can stay personal unless your household explicitly shares them.
A roommate chore chart people can actually agree to.
Print this template, inventory the shared work, rate effort, choose the first owner, and decide what rotates. The chart is useful on its own; ChoreKeep can carry the routine after everyone agrees.
Printable template
Shared-home chore chart
Fill one row per outcome. “Clean bathroom” is clearer than separate rows that accidentally let one person claim the easy half. Use effort from 1 (very easy) to 5 (very hard).
| Task outcome | Room | Frequency | Effort 1–5 | Owner now | Owner next | Done/date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Take out trash | Kitchen | Weekly | 2 | |||
| Clean toilet and sink | Bathroom | Weekly | 3 | |||
| Vacuum common areas | Living room | Weekly | 3 | |||
| Wipe counters | Kitchen | Daily | 1 | |||
| Mop floors | Shared rooms | Every 2 weeks | 4 | |||
| Clean fridge shelves | Kitchen | Monthly | 4 | |||
| Buy shared supplies | Household | As needed | 2 | |||
Household: ____________________
Week of: ____________________
Reset day: ____________________
How to fill it out
Agree on the work before assigning the people.
02
Rate time and unpleasantness
Effort is not only minutes. A short but unpleasant job can reasonably score higher. Agree on the scale before comparing anyone’s total.
03
Choose ownership, not reminders
The owner is responsible for noticing and completing the whole outcome. Another roommate should not have to manage the owner into doing it.
04
Rotate only interchangeable jobs
Rotate trash or bathroom cleaning when everyone can do them. Keep stable ownership for preference-based or specialized work, then balance effort elsewhere.
Example: three roommates
Balance the effort, not the number of rows.
Sam takes trash (2) and supplies (2). Alex takes the bathroom (3) and daily counters (1). Jordan takes vacuuming (3) and the monthly fridge clean (4), but the fridge only lands once every four weeks. The weekly workload is close without giving each person exactly two identical-looking boxes.
Rules worth writing below the chart
- Trade a task directly; do not silently abandon it.
- If the frequency is wrong twice, change the schedule.
- Completion means the agreed outcome, not a partial version.
- Review the chart for ten minutes on the same day each week.
Move from paper to a routine
A chart starts the agreement. A system keeps it moving.
Once the chart survives a week, add the recurring rows to a chore app. ChoreKeep can organize them by room, assign or rotate them, schedule reminders, and keep completion history. Read the roommate workflow or the detailed explanation of round-robin chore rotation.
Questions, answered
Roommate chore chart questions.
- Should we split chores equally by count?
- Usually not. Count hides time, effort, and frequency. Use the effort column and look at a typical month so an occasional deep clean does not appear equal to a daily task.
- How often should the chart change?
- Review it weekly at first, but change assignments only when the workload or household changes. Constantly redesigning the system creates its own management chore.
- What if someone misses their chore?
- Start by checking whether the outcome, due date, and owner were clear. Agree on a direct trade or a new due date. Repeated misses are a household agreement problem, not something a chart can solve by itself.
- Can we use the template without ChoreKeep?
- Absolutely. The printable chart is a standalone tool. ChoreKeep is an optional way to add shared reminders, history, room views, and automatic rotation after the plan works on paper.
Stop keeping the list in your head.
No public release date is announced yet. We’ll send one email when ChoreKeep hits the stores — no newsletter, no countdown.