lyven
All 68, on paper

A printable household chores list for adults

Every job it takes to run a home, grouped into five areas, with how often each one comes round and roughly what it costs in minutes. Free PDF, no email, built for two adults rather than for a kids reward chart.

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No email and no sign-up. Two pages, and it prints cleanly on A4 or US Letter from the same file.

Written by the team at Lyven · page last updated 18 September 2026.

What is on the list

Sixty eight jobs across five areas: inside the house, outside it, admin and money, kids, and the invisible work that holds the rest together. Each row carries how often it comes up and a rough effort weight, so you can see at a glance that a daily twenty minute job and a yearly one are not equivalent rows.

Most couples can name about twenty jobs from memory. A household without kids typically runs around 45 of these, roughly 24 hours a week by our weights. With young kids it is closer to 64 jobs and about 48 hours. The gap between the twenty you can name and the number you actually run is usually where the argument lives.

The full annotated version, with a short description of what each job really covers, is on the household jobs list. The PDF is the same 68, stripped back to something you can print and tick.

How to use it without starting a fight

  1. Print two copies and fill them in separately. Each of you marks who you think owns each job, on your own sheet, before comparing. Doing it together first turns it into a debate about memory rather than a record of it.
  2. Compare the two sheets. The rows where you disagree are the interesting ones. A job that both of you marked as your own is usually one person doing it and the other assuming it happens.
  3. Cross off what does not apply. No garden, no pets, no kids, no problem. The list is deliberately longer than any single household needs.
  4. Add the weights up per person. Not to settle a score, but because a totals gap is a far easier thing to talk about than a feeling that things are uneven.

Why this is longer than most chores lists

Most household chores lists count tasks: unstack the dishwasher, take the bins out, vacuum the hall. This one counts responsibilities. Groceries is not the trip to the supermarket, it is keeping the list, noticing the staples before they run out, planning around the week, and the shop.

That is why the list runs to 68 rather than the twenty or thirty you will find elsewhere, and it is also why splitting the visible tasks while one person keeps all the noticing never quite moves the load. If that idea is new, the mental load, explained is the five minute version.

A blank chart to go with it

If you want somewhere to write the split down once you have been through the list, the chore chart template for couples is a one page grid with an owner column, a weight column and a total at the bottom. Free, same as this one. Everything else we give away sits on the printables page.

Or skip the adding up

The free Split Check asks a handful of questions and shows you where your split actually sits, weighted, in about two minutes. No account needed.

Take the Split Check

Questions people actually ask

How many household chores are there?
By our count there are 68 distinct jobs across five areas, once you count whole responsibilities rather than individual tasks. A couple without kids typically runs about 45 of them, roughly 24 hours a week by our weights. With young kids it is about 64 jobs and roughly 48 hours a week.
Is the printable household chores list free?
Yes, and there is no email wall. It is a PDF you can print as often as you like. Lyven is the household app we build, and the list is useful on its own whether or not you ever try it.
What is the difference between a chore and a household job?
A chore is a task: unstack the dishwasher, take the bins out. A job is the whole responsibility end to end, which means noticing it needs doing, planning how and when, then doing it. Chore charts divide the doing and leave the noticing where it was, which is why they tend not to shift the imbalance.
Is this a chores list for adults or for kids?
For adults. There are no stickers, points or reward columns, and the jobs are written as whole responsibilities rather than single tasks a child could be handed. The kids area covers work that having children creates for the adults, such as school admin and appointments.
Can I get it as a spreadsheet instead of a PDF?
Not at the moment. If you want to do the sums rather than print them, the free Split Check does the weighting and the totals for you, and the annotated jobs list on the site has the same 68 rows in a form you can copy.