In this post, I’ll introduce the planning and reward system I’ve developed to get (and keep) my life in order! I use it for chores, fitness, budgeting, and developing healthy habits. It’s taken years to smooth it out, but the changes in my life been huge! It started as a simple chore chart, so that’s where we’ll start today. Step by step, I’ll show you how to set up your very own Simple Life chore chart and introduce you to a versatile system of rewarding yourself for sticking to your plans!
My story:
I’ve been a slob since I was old enough to know better. When I got my first apartment, I had no idea how to clean anything, nevermind what actually needed cleaning. I honestly just wasn’t that bothered by mess. I’d only do dishes when I ran out of clean ones. I wouldn’t take out the garbage until it stated to smell. I’d sweep up and vacuum and take out the recycling as part of a frantic shame-cleaning ritual when someone was coming over. Somehow I narrowly avoided living in a hoarding nightmare. I was just that lazy. Deep cleaning was so far off my radar that I lost my security deposit when I moved out because… yeah, some nooks and crannies were pretty ugly.
When I got a job in Japan and moved into my current apartment, I spent the first year treating it in much the same way. Only now, I’d adopted a partying lifestyle, enabled by a job that didn’t start until late afternoon. I’d go drinking after work, and spend the mornings recovering. I bought all my food at the convenience store and let the containers pile up in the kitchen until shame-cleaning time. When I did get inklings that I could do better, usually while nursing a hangover, I’d look around at my mess and feel completely overwhelmed.
I wasn’t showing up for myself. So I decided to start treating myself better. I would make an effort to keep a reasonably clean house because dammit, I deserve to live in a space that I can enjoy!
The Simple Life Journal
Eventually, I got sick and tired of living like that. In the middle of a big shame-clean, it suddenly occurred to me that I wasn’t treating myself the way I deserve to be treated. I was willing to work myself into a panic making sure my house looked good for guests, but I allowed myself to live in a dysfunctional pigsty. I wasn’t showing up for myself. So I decided to start treating myself better. I would make an effort to keep a reasonably clean house because dammit, I deserve to live in a space that I can enjoy!
So I sat down and made what would eventually evolve into the planning system I’m about to present in this post! I hope it’s useful to you. I’ve occasionally gotten up the courage to share it with some friends, and they’ve all been pretty impressed. All I can say is that it’s been absolutely invaluable to me.
I’m planning to talk about various aspect of my planning and reward system in this blog, which I’m very excited to get into. But for today, let’s start where I started 3 years ago – the chore chart!
If you’re already a seasoned planner, maybe you can incorporate elements of my reward system into what you already do.
If nothing else, I’m pretty proud of the changes I’ve made in my life. If you knew how I was living 4 or 5 years ago, you’d probably be wondering who murdered Erin and made this blog! Maybe it can be useful to folks who were in the same situation I was in and want to get motivated to make lasting changes in their lifestyle.
Okay, now that that’s out of the way, we can gather our supplies and get started!
You will need:
- A notebook. Any kind will do. I recommend grid or dot-grid pages, but grab whatever is laying around.
- A pen. Any kind. Pencil is totally fine, too.
- Some simple dot stickers in two different colours. You’ll use these to track your progress.
- A ruler.
Got it? Let’s get started!
Step 1: Choose your reward.
When I was a kid, I would get an allowance for doing all my chores. I’ve never really outgrown the need to reward myself for doing the work necessary to keep a nice house. Rewards keep me motivated and accountable. They’re a visual and tactile reminder that I’m on the right track. A schedule of any kind without some reward for following through isn’t useful to me at all.
When you set up your Simple Life Journal, think about what you want your reward to be. For me, good old fashioned cash is the best. I include in my monthly budget 10,000 yen (about $100) specifically for this. When I get enough points, I take 1000 yen (about $10) and stick it in my wallet as guilt-free impulse-buy money. You might do the same thing, or choose something else. Here are some other ideas.
- Choose a big-ticket item you want but don’t need, and put $10 (or whatever you can afford) towards it.
- Build an online wishlist of cheap-ish fun items (EBooks, art supplies, jewelry, toys, home decor, etc) and buy yourself one.
- Give yourself an hour of guilt-free relax time with your favourite time-waster.
- Buy yourself a nice lunch.
- Call up someone who makes you feel good and have a nice conversation.
- Give yourself a spa treatment.
Consider the money you spend on rewards as an investment in yourself.
The Simple Life Journal
Make sure your reward doesn’t conflict with your other goals. Like if you’re trying to cut back on drinking, don’t reward yourself with a case of beer.
Consider the money you spend on rewards as an investment in yourself. It doesn’t need to break your bank. I recommend no more than $100 a month. Generally, I earn one or two $10 rewards per week, and I think this is a perfect amount.
I’ve been broke before, and even when struggling to buy the basic necessities, I still gave in to temptation and wasted bits of money here and there on things I just wanted. I think a lot of people do the same thing. It’s better to plan and set a little money aside for this. Then you don’t have to worry about where the money is coming from, and you can enjoy your treat without feeling guilty about spending frivolously.
If you don’t want to use money, there are plenty of ways to treat yourself for free!
Dig deep and consider what motivates you!
Go ahead and adjust or change your reward as needed.
When you’ve chosen, open to the first blank page of your chore chart, and write it down. Mine said “Get a point for doing all scheduled chores that day. After 5 points, take 1000 yen.” Yours might say “After 5 points, put $5 towards a new juicer” or “after 10 points, schedule a massage.”
Putting this at the top of your chore schedule will be constant reminder that the grind of housework isn’t for nothing!
Step 2: Make your chore schedule.
On a scrap piece of paper, list all the chores that need to be done in your home. Think about the little things you need to do every day, like dishes, putting clothes away, or taking out the garbage. Also consider infrequent deep-cleaning stuff like pulling out the fridge, cleaning out your closets, or flipping your mattress. For ideas, I recommend checking out UFYH. They’re a fantastic blog for people who aren’t so good with the cleaning stuff. If you don’t mind some (read: LOTS OF) swearing, they have very thorough cleaning checklists available for free as well as suggestions on how often things need to be done.
Once you’ve brainstormed all your chores, it’s time to make the rough schedule. Bust out your notebook again. On the page where you wrote your rewards, create the following sections:
- Daily
- Twice a week
- Weekly
- Monthly
- Seasonally
Start placing chores according to how often you think you need to do them. Leave space for when you want to move or add them as you develop your routine. Consider this your “masterlist”. When you schedule chores in your daily spaces, you’ll consult this page. Mine looks like this:
For chores you do infrequently, seasonally, or only at certain times of the year (such as yardwork and deep-cleaning), write down the month in which you want to do it, and check it off when it’s done.
Some chores are difficult to schedule because they’re only done as needed, like laundry or taking out the recycling. But they’re still important and worthy of counting towards rewards! Keep them jotted down for now, and we’ll make a space for them in the next step!
Step 3: Make your monthly tracker page.
Now you can start actually building your journal! On the next blank page, simply make a calendar. How you do it is up to you! Minimal, elaborate, whatever. You can pencil in your work or class schedule and any important dates here, as well. It’s just a monthly overview.
Remember those as-needed chores from before? I deal with them using counters. Just make a tally mark next to the chore and give yourself a point when it reaches 5. You can do habits this way too!
As you’ll see, this month page does a lot of work, and you’ll be looking at it a lot. So if you’re into it, take some time to add personal touches like doodles, stickers, washi tape, patterned paper, and magazine clippings, whatever. Just make sure that form doesn’t overshadow function and there is still space to track what you need to track. This is now my favourite page to make because I can really have fun with it. Check out my Instagram for some photos of my planner!
The monthly page has the most important job – tracking your rewards! More on that in a bit. There are a couple important things we need to do first, starting with…
Step 4: Make your daily planner pages.
Turn to the next blank page. Here, we divide up the page to make space for each day. How you do this will depend on the size and shape of your notebook, and how much space you want for other notes and decorations. But here’s how I do it. In larger notebooks, make a 3 x 3 grid on each page. This way, each page shows a whole week, with two extra squares for notes or decoration. Write the date at the top of each section.
If your notebook is small, divide each page into quarters. When you open the book, the two pages facing each other will show a whole week, with one extra square for notes or decoration.
Do this for the whole month. Now, you’re ready to start plugging in chores!
Step 5: Schedule your chores.
Now, consult your chore masterlist and plan each day accordingly. Create a checklist, starting with the most frequent tasks first. Don’t bother writing in daily tasks, unless you really want to. You’ll soon have them memorized and it will become a habit to do them as part of as a cleaning warm-up.
It helps to schedule chores as part of a weekly routine. For example, I vacuum on Mondays and Thursdays, clean the bathroom on Tuesdays, etc.
Consider which chores go together well, and put them on the same day. For me, Wednesday is ‘kitchen day’ when I wash the floor, wipe down the walls, scrub the counters, etc. When a monthly or seasonal task involves the kitchen, I schedule it for a Wednesday because I’ll be working in there anyway.
Over the next couple months, be open to tweaking your schedule until you find a routine that you can maintain.
The Simple Life Journal
Think about your work schedule and other commitments. I like to front-load my week because I know I’ll be getting worn out by Thursday or Friday. I always leave Sundays free because it’s nice to have a day off. If you know a particular day will be busy, keep your to-do list short. If you know you’ll have a free day, use it to tackle some bigger chores. If you’re always busy during the week but reliably have weekends free, you can keep weekday lists short and designate a chore day on the weekend. Personally, I like to spread them out so that I end up doing around 30 – 40 minutes of cleaning every normal day, and spend a bit more time deep-cleaning on my days off. I live alone in a tiny apartment, so this is totally sufficient for me. Over the next couple months, be open to tweaking your schedule until you find a routine that you can maintain.
A typical week in my own planner looks like this:
It may seem like a lot of work to set up, but it doesn’t have to be if you keep your layout simple. You’ll be easily able to bang it out in less than an hour. Taking a bit of time at the beginning of the month will actually save time in the long run because you won’t have to think about it again.
Step 6: Do your chores.
Start with your daily tasks and think of it as a warm-up. This will quickly become routine, which is why I recommended against writing them in every single day.
I also suggest getting into the habit of doing chores around the same time every day. If you work evenings like I do, set aside an hour in the morning and leave the house knowing you don’t have anything to do but eat and go to sleep when you get home late. If you’re a 9-5er, then the best time for cleaning might be just before or just after dinner. Whatever time works for you is great, but try to keep it consistent in order to build a cleaning habit.
Work through your do-to list. Check, cross off, or colour in the box when you finish. Then give yourself a point for a productive chore day!
You’re ready to start using your monthly tracker page!
Step 7: Earn points, get your rewards!
The best part of the whole system! Remember those dot stickers I told you to get? Here’s where you use them.
When you check off all the tasks you planned for the day, put a dot sticker on that day of your calendar! I do it in fives; four dot stickers, then a reward sticker. Then, enjoy your reward!
That’s all there is to it! Now relax and enjoy the fact that you will quickly learn to get and stay on top of your house!
Further comments:
Moving chores:
Shit happens, and you can’t always do everything you planned. You get busy, last minute plans get made, the weather doesn’t cooperate, and fires need putting out. That said, you’ll have to be just a tiny bit hard on yourself if this is going to be effective. It’s all about accountability, after all! Flexibility is an advantage of the Simple Life system, but you have to be willing to forfeit points every now and then. I use the following ground rules.
- I can move chores, but only up to one day in advance.
For example, I planned to wash my sheets on Monday morning. But on Sunday, a friend invited me to a Monday morning yoga class followed by lunch, and I won’t have time to wash my sheets. On Sunday, I move sheets to Tuesday. On Monday, I quickly do my daily chores before I leave for yoga, and I get a point. - I can’t move a chore on the same day.
For example, I plan to wash my sheets today. But in the morning, my friend calls up and offers to pick me up and take me to a morning yoga class followed by lunch. I’d rather do that than stay home and do laundry, so I reschedule the sheets, forfeit the point, and enjoy my day anyway because chores aren’t everything. - I can move a chore on the same day without losing a point if it’s dependent on good weather.
For example, I plan to wash the sheets today. I have a washing machine but no dryer because I live in Japan where everyone just dries clothes outside on the balcony. It’s pouring rain and drying the sheets will be impossible. So I reschedule the sheets to, do my other chores, get a point, and hope for better weather tomorrow.
I can honestly say that my frantic shame-cleaning days are over ever since I got this system nailed down.
The Simple Life Journal
Stick with this system for at least a few months before you decide whether you love it or hate it. It took me much longer than that to finally get it tweaked just right, but once I did, I built a habit that has turned me from a total slob into a confident and organized person! I occasionally fall behind and miss a week or two here and there because life happens, but as soon as I’m ready, I can pick up right where I left off. I can honestly say that my frantic shame-cleaning days are over ever since I got this system nailed down. And that’s why I want to share it with you!
I’m so excited to be able to talk about my planning journey! I’ve got a lot of posts in store! Keep checking back, and I’ll share more about building and tracking healthy habits, keeping a budget, meal-planning, and more! I can’t wait to share it with you!
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Thanks for reading!