Since mid-January I have been using the Motivated Moms ebook chore schedule. It’s a yearly planner that has pre-scheduled chores for you to do on a daily basis. You do a little each day instead of an entire once-a-year “spring clean” that is time consuming and stressful. With the Motivated Moms chore schedule everything is laid out for you, all you need to do is check off the boxes as you complete your chores.
I used to do the whole frantic spring cleaning frenzy, but it became a little too much to do all at once while homeschooling and childminding so last year I took a different approach and worked on cleaning one kitchen cupboard a month, dusting one room of the house a week, and cleaning a closet quarterly. The Motivated Moms chore schedule is similar to this so I thought it could be the perfect fit.
The Motivated Moms chore schedule is available in an app version, as well as in 16 ebook versions which are available in full page or half-page sizes, black and white or colour versions, as well as other alternatives. I chose to go with the Motivated Moms half-size chore planner colour version. Although I usually print as much as possible in draft quality black and white, I thought that now and again a little colour may give me a bit of a pick-me-up when chores get boring as they often do. This way I have the choice to print in colour or black and white. It’s the little things in life that cheer me up!
If you’re not sure which planner you’d like, You can print a sample page to see which style you like and will work the best for you. It does take some ink and paper to print the sample pages, but it’s best to do this ahead than find out later that what you had planned won’t work for you. It did take me a little while to figure mine out. The pages are sized to letter size, but the standard size is A4 here so it kept missing the tops of the pages. I did get it figured out in the end. Just remember it’s always good to try before you buy!
If you’d like to save a little extra, take a little extra time and print on both sides of the paper and use full sheets in a regular sized binder. This is great if you already have a home management binder. Then you won’t need to purchase anything new. Of course, this size is meant to fit in a smaller binder or be bound, but I like to keep my options open.
I started off keeping my chore schedule in my home management binder, but I soon found it was much easier for me to fix it up on the kitchen wall near my command centre. This way I see it every time I leave the room and I can glance at it as I walk past and choose a chore from the list to do. This means it’s out of the way, and the pens are close by to tick off the chores as I accomplish them. All of those little check-marks do help provide a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the week.
I already have lots of lists and tend to write them when I’m in bed, the library, or on the run so I didn’t go for the page-per-day that includes plenty of space for your own appointments or lists, but if you want all things in one place, it would be a great choice.
There are 16 daily chores (but not necessarily all of them will apply to you) and space for 4 additional chores. I love that one of the daily ‘chores’ is to read to your children. This is a very important part of our lives, but sometimes when things get rushed it’s easy to forget or to put it aside for a day. This will help keep everyone on track.
The bulk of the weekly chores are scheduled for Monday to Friday, with mostly light work for the weekends so you can spend time with your family without having to worry about doing any chores other than the usual upkeep of dishes and sweeping.
I like that the Motivated Moms chore schedule reminds us once a week to pamper ourselves. I’ve been trying to not necessarily ‘pamper’ myself once a week, but to take a little time out and do something that I like to do. Sometimes it’s reading a book that isn’t about home ed or blogging, or writing a letter. It’s helped me to feel more at peace with myself, and that’s a great thing!
Motivated Moms even reminds me to cut the children’s nails. They grow so fast and I keep it in my mind that they need to be cut, but when it’s written down for me I don’t need to worry so much about it, I know it will show up and I’ll get it done.
This chore schedule breaks down the big tasks like cleaning the fridge into smaller, more manageable tasks such as cleaning the middle shelf this week and the bottom shelf next week. As you can see, we have a small fridge (but large for a lot of folk in the UK), I got a little carried away and cleaned the whole fridge! But really, it didn’t take much time and I knew that the following week was going to be busy for us so I worked ahead a little…
Some chores are planned more frequently than we need to do them, such as changing the bathroom towels. And I need to vacuum our sofa every Tuesday after Phil and the children have their movie and popcorn night on Monday while I’m away to a meeting. I haven’t had any experience with the Motivated Mom’s app for the chore schedule, but moving around the frequency of certain chores would be handy.
I know that with a chore planner it is very difficult to plan for every occasion and for every house and lifestyle so there are things in my chore planner that I don’t have to deal with such as cleaning upstairs or changing furnace filters. However there are things that I do on a monthly or quarterly basis that aren’t included. If I had chosen the planner with space for my own to-do lists on the side, I could have planned these things in nicely. But I didn’t think of that aspect when I chose my style.
If I miss a few days (appointments, Olympic obsession, hubby being home, etc.) it’s easy enough to pick up the next day, or even the next week and continue on. You’re likely only to have missed a couple of larger items to do. The majority of chores are done every week, though not necessarily on the same day each week. Being able to pick up where I’ve left off, or occasionally working ahead when I know I’ll not be able to do some chores in the next day or two is nice.
There is a 2 week meal planner at the end of the chore schedule ebook. This can make planning ahead every Monday a little easier so there’s less stress at mealtimes wondering what to make. And now that my fridge has been cleaned, I can see what’s there to plan my week’s meals!
If you need some organisation and reminders, the Motivated Moms chore schedule is a good start. All of the Motivated Moms chore planner ebooks are $8.00 for the calendar year. You can find Motivated Moms on Facebook and on Twitter, as well as the Motivated Moms website.
If you’d like to see more reviews about the Motivated Moms ebooks and apps, click on the link below to take you to 99 other reviews!
If you don’t want to miss a thing, please follow Crystal’s Tiny Treasures through any or all of the following
social media channels:
Subscribe by e-mail, Facebook, Google +, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin or your favourite reader.
