Essential Household Tasks

 Research shows that children who do household chores are more likely to be caring, helpful people in adulthood. Developing a master list of essential household tasks and then breaking them down into individual lists for each person in the house can help ensure that everyone is responsible for some work.

Cleaning

Cleaning is a task that keeps your living space tidy and free of spills, food scraps and crumbs. It includes things like vacuuming, wiping down surfaces and scrubbing the sinks and bathtub. These are usually weekly tasks but can be done as needed.

Keeping your home clean and organized is essential to your well-being, so it's important for every member of the household to have some sort of chore responsibility. Creating a master household chores list and then breaking it down into individual lists for each family member can help everyone stay on track, even when life gets busy.

The division of household duties varies by each family's situation and needs, but women still tend to take on more core chores than men in dual-income households. Here are some examples of daily, weekly and monthly household tasks to consider when creating a chore chart.

Laundry

Whether it's washing clothes, cleaning sheets or reorganizing the laundry room, laundry is another household task that can quickly become a time-consuming and tedious chore. Laundry often happens on a daily basis and is usually done at home or a commercial laundry (a tvattstuga in Swedish, for example).

Men and women have different roles when it comes to laundry and other household tasks. Women tend to take on more duties than men in dual-income households, and they are also more likely to care for children, cook dinner, clean the house and wash dishes.

It may be a good idea to make a household chore list to help you and your partner or roommates understand the full scope of your responsibilities, says Rodsky. You can then come up with a way to divide up the tasks and ensure that they are completed on a regular basis. For example, you can create a weekly laundry schedule or a monthly chore chart.

Food Preparation

A core human activity, food preparation includes a wide range of techniques, from simple to complex. These can be applied to make food edible and digestible, or to preserve it for later consumption. They can also transform its character, such as by adding salt or brewing beer.

Food preparation is often viewed as the first step in the process of bringing food from nature to our tables. However, it might more accurately be considered part of the food distribution phase, since most foods need to be cooked or otherwise prepared in order to be eaten.

According to eButton image data, the most common food related behaviors were combining ingredients and unwrapping ingredients. These are less involving than actual cooking, but are still important for healthy diets. For instance, preparing meals at home allows for greater control over the amount of saturated fat and sugar in the meal. Also, training children to cook during tween years and adolescence will help them avoid resorting to microwaved dinners when they move out on their own.