How it works
Three boards on your fridge, a weekly rhythm, and points that reflect how hard each job really is.
The three boards
- Board 1: this week’s jobs. Colour boxes, one for each room type. Magnets sit in the box that matches their colour.
- Board 2: done. A box for each person. When you finish a job, move its magnet into your box. Its points stay there until Sunday.
- Board 3: the tally. A column for each person, with their running total at the bottom. Small jobs without a magnet go here in pen: one line per point, with every fifth line crossing through the four before it. For a bigger job without a magnet, just write the number. The week and cycle markers, the goal bar, your reward and the top scorer prize go along the bottom.
What goes on the board each week
- Always on: the weekly jobs that come round every single week.
- Four-week rotation: jobs that come round every two or four weeks, shared out so that no week is overloaded. Hoovering comes first and mopping or vaxing straight after, so the floor is ready.
- Three-month grid: deep cleans, such as ovens and ceiling corners, spread across twelve weeks.
- Garden season: garden jobs from March to September, if you have a garden.
The Sunday routine
- Count up: add each person’s magnet points from board 2 and their tally from board 3 to their total, then wipe the tally clean.
- Put the always-on magnets back in their colour boxes.
- Move last week’s extra magnets to the side of the fridge.
- Move the week marker on.
- Put out this week’s extra magnets.
How points are worked out
A point is roughly half a minute of plain effort, and then we add what makes a job hard to start: fetching the kit, how unpleasant it is, how much it weighs on you, how many steps there are before you begin, and carrying things up stairs or outside.
For example, hoovering a flight of stairs is worth more than hoovering a hallway, because the hoover has to come up and down the stairs as well.
You can add your own jobs and tell us which ones you do not need.
What you need
- A printer, or somewhere to print your pages.
- A fridge door or magnetic whiteboards for the three boards.
- Magnetic dry-erase labels. Your pack tells you how many packs of each colour to buy.
- A permanent marker for the labels and board lines, and a dry-erase pen for the tally.