By: Abby Owen
We’ve reached that point in the quarter where everyone seems to be having a mid-quarter crisis. You have deadlines piling up, and maybe some dishes that need cleaning. I know if I’m stressed and I come home to a dirty house it just makes my stress worse. My roommates and I aren’t perfect people — sometimes we’ll forget about the Pizza Time box in the living room that’s been there for days, or the plates we ate with.
Now how do you decide who cleans what, and when they should do it? Last year my house had a tally system, and that didn’t work out very well. You would put a tally if you did the dishes, took out the trash/recycling or if you swept the floors. Some girls who liked the house cleaner than others would do way more, making the system unfair.
Let’s be honest - as college students we can be messy, we have a lot going on. It’s all about finding that happy medium between having a squeaky clean house or dishes everywhere.
This year the group of girls I live with and I created a dish wheel. Game changer, let me tell you that. Before we would have dishes left in the sink, but now the wheel helps hold people accountable. Look at the image below to see how it works. What else makes the world go round?
A matching garbage/recycle wheel. Whenever the garbage gets full, it is up to anyone in the house to take it out. The wheel makes it so on Monday nights someone makes sure the garbage in the kitchen is empty, and that they take the recycling out. Whoever’s turn it is also makes sure it is sorted correctly. Plastic and paper have to be separated, otherwise you have to wait a week to try again, and c’mon - we all know you don’t want to be that neighbor. Before the stress gets to you and snap at your roommate for being dirty, remember the concept of the wheel. Whether you chose to do that or have a different idea in mind, having a chore system in place makes life much cleaner, and easier too.
