A good chore chart template replaces a hundred small negotiations with one visible agreement. This one covers the whole household on a single page: daily chores assigned by person and day, a weekly chores block for the bigger jobs, and a built-in rotation so the most disliked chores change hands every week. Use it as a printable family chore chart, copy the plain-text version to your phone, or turn it into a shared checklist the whole family can tick off — more on that below.
Why chore charts end the nagging
Most household friction about chores isn't about the work — it's about the asking. When nothing is written down, every chore starts with someone having to notice it, decide whose turn it is, and say it out loud. That's three chances for an argument before a single dish gets washed. A chart moves all of that to one conversation a week: the jobs are listed, the owner is named, the day is set.
The second thing a chart fixes is fairness you can see. "I do everything around here" and "I did the dishes twice this week" stop being competing memories — the chart shows who did what. And because this template rotates the unpopular chores weekly, fairness is built into the structure instead of renegotiated every Sunday night.
The template: daily chart, weekly chores, and rotation
Here's the full template. The chart below is the at-a-glance weekly version for a household of up to four (add rows for more people); under it is a plain-text version you can select, copy, and paste straight into My Tasks, a notes app, or any text field. Use the buttons to print a clean one-page copy or copy the whole thing.
| Chore | Who | When | Done ✓ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dishes / load dishwasher | Person A (rotates weekly) | Daily, after dinner | ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ |
| Wipe kitchen counters | Person B | Daily, after dinner | ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ |
| Take out trash & recycling | Person C (rotates weekly) | Mon & Thu | ☐ ☐ |
| Feed pets / water plants | Person D | Daily, morning | ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ |
| Tidy own room | Everyone | Daily, before bed | ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ |
| Vacuum common areas | Person A | Saturday | ☐ |
| Clean bathroom | Person B (rotates weekly) | Saturday | ☐ |
| Laundry (wash, dry, fold) | Person C | Sunday | ☐ |
| Change bed sheets | Everyone (own bed) | Sunday, every 2 weeks | ☐ |
| Grocery shop for the week | Person D | Saturday | ☐ |
FAMILY CHORE CHART — WEEK OF ________
(Rotating chores swap owners every Monday)
DAILY CHORES
[ ] Dishes / dishwasher ......... A (rotates)
[ ] Wipe kitchen counters ....... B
[ ] Feed pets / water plants .... D
[ ] Tidy own room ............... everyone
[ ] 10-minute evening reset ..... everyone
(living room back to normal)
TWICE A WEEK
[ ] Trash & recycling out ....... C (rotates)
Days: Mon + Thu
WEEKLY CHORES (weekend)
[ ] Vacuum common areas ......... A
[ ] Clean bathroom .............. B (rotates)
[ ] Laundry: wash, dry, fold .... C
[ ] Grocery shop for the week ... D
[ ] Change bed sheets ........... everyone
(own bed, every 2 weeks)
----------------------------------------
ROTATION (swap every Monday)
Week 1: A=dishes B=bathroom C=trash
Week 2: B=dishes C=bathroom A=trash
Week 3: C=dishes A=bathroom B=trash
(then back to Week 1)
----------------------------------------
NOTES
- One owner per chore. "Everyone" only
works for own-space jobs.
- Done means done fully (dry dishes put
away, folded laundry in drawers).
- Weekly review: Sunday, 5 minutes —
what slipped, what swaps next week?
How to set up this chore chart in 4 steps
- List only the chores that actually recur. Walk through a normal week and write down the jobs that come back every day or week — dishes, counters, trash, laundry, vacuuming, pet care. One-off jobs ("fix the shelf") don't belong on the chart; put those on a normal to-do list.
- Give every chore one owner and one day. "Someone should vacuum" means nobody vacuums. Assign each job to a named person on a named day, and match jobs to what each household member can realistically do.
- Rotate the unpopular chores. Dishes, trash and bathroom duty swap owners every Monday on the fixed pattern in the template. Rotation is what keeps a chart alive — a chart where one person permanently owns the worst job gets quietly abandoned.
- Review for five minutes every Sunday. What got done? What slipped, and why — wrong owner, wrong day, or just forgotten? Adjust one thing and run the next week. A chart that never changes is a chart nobody looks at.
Chore ideas by age
If kids are part of the chart, match jobs to age — small children can do real work when the job is small and concrete. Common-sense starting points (adjust to your own child and your own safety rules):
- Ages 3–5: put toys in the bin, put dirty clothes in the hamper, feed the pet with supervision, match socks from the clean laundry.
- Ages 6–9: set and clear the table, water plants, make their own bed, put away their folded laundry, help unpack groceries.
- Ages 10–13: load and empty the dishwasher, take out the trash, vacuum a room, prepare simple breakfasts, pack their own school bag.
- Teens: full laundry loads, clean the bathroom, cook one simple dinner a week, mow the lawn, help with the weekly grocery shop.
The pattern that works: young kids share a chore with an adult until it's routine, then own it. And keep the "Done ✓" column honest — checking their own box is half the motivation.
Variations: roommates, couples, and points
- Roommates / flatshares. Keep personal spaces off the chart entirely. Split only the shared areas — kitchen, bathroom, trash, floors — and rotate everything weekly. The rotation block in the template is the whole agreement.
- Couples. Skip day-by-day assignments and split by domain instead: one person owns cooking and groceries, the other owns laundry and floors, bathroom rotates. Fewer checkboxes, same clarity.
- Points and allowance. Give each chore a point value (harder = more) and set a weekly target per person. Whether points convert to allowance, screen time, or just bragging rights is your call — the value is that effort becomes visible.
- The 10-minute evening reset. One shared chore worth adding for any household: ten minutes, everyone at once, living areas back to normal. It's on the daily list in the template because it prevents the weekend mega-clean.
Turn the chart into a shared checklist with reminders
A paper chart on the fridge works — until someone's not home, the boxes fill up, and next week needs a fresh printout. Moving the chart into an app fixes the forgetting part: copy the plain-text template above, paste it into My Tasks, and each chore becomes a checklist item you can set to repeat on its day, with a reminder so "trash night" pings the right person at the right time.
The core app is free: unlimited lists, repeating tasks, and reminders. Premium adds real-time sharing — the whole household sees the same live chart, a checked-off chore disappears from everyone's phone, and you can assign tasks to a specific person. For a full comparison of how families use shared lists, see our guide to the best shared to-do list app for families and couples, and pair the Saturday grocery chore with our grocery list template.
Chore chart FAQ
Is this chore chart template free?
Yes — free to print or copy, with no email signup. Tap Print for a clean one-page chart, Copy for the plain-text version, or save it as a PDF from the print dialog.
How do we keep the chore chart fair?
Rotate the unpopular chores weekly instead of assigning them permanently. When dishes, trash and bathroom duty swap owners every week on a fixed pattern, the chart stays fair without renegotiating every Sunday.
Does a chore chart work for roommates too?
Yes — the same chart works for flatshares. Keep personal spaces off the chart, split only the shared areas (kitchen, bathroom, trash, floors), and rotate weekly so nobody owns the worst job forever.
Can the whole family see and check off chores on their phones?
Paste the plain-text chart into My Tasks and each chore becomes a checklist item you can set to repeat on its day. With premium sharing, the household sees the same live list, so a checked-off chore disappears from everyone's phone at once.