lyven
The household jobs list

Every job it takes to run a home

Running a household takes 68 distinct jobs, by our count — and most couples can name about 20 of them from memory. This is the complete list we built Lyven on: every job grouped into five areas, each weighted by how often it comes up and the effort it really takes. Not chores — jobs. A job includes the noticing, planning and remembering, not just the visible doing. Read it together, print it, and see which of you is carrying what.

Weights from Lyven's own starter deck · page last updated: 19 July 2026.

The size of the thing

The same list lands differently on four kinds of household — you'll run some of these 68 jobs, not all of them. These are our own weights for a realistic week (weekday dinners five nights, not seven), not a research claim: yours will differ, which is exactly what the numbers are for noticing.

Just the two of you
45 jobs
about 24 hours of work a week
With young kids
64 jobs
about 48 hours a week — more than a full working week
With school-age kids
63 jobs
about 45 hours a week
Empty nest
44 jobs
about 24 hours a week — the kids' jobs go, the rest doesn't

The maths that matters: a daily 30-minute job is 3.5 hours a week, every week. A monthly one is a rounding error. So "we each do about the same number of things" can hide a wildly uneven split — which is why every job below carries its frequency and effort.

A job is not a chore

A chore is a task: unstack the dishwasher, take the bins out. A job is the whole responsibility, end-to-end. "Groceries" isn't the trip to the supermarket — it's keeping the list, noticing the staples before they run out, planning around the week, and the shop. Whoever owns a job owns all three parts: the noticing, the planning and the doing.

That's the difference between this list and a chore chart, and it's why splitting the visible tasks while one person keeps all the noticing never actually moves the load. If that idea is new to you, the mental load, explained is the five-minute version.

The complete list — 68 jobs, five areas

Each job shows how often it typically comes up and a rough effort weight per occurrence. The kids' jobs only apply if you have them; almost everything else applies to every household.

Inside

21 jobs — the daily engine of the house
  • Dishes daily · ~20 min
    The stacking, washing and unpacking cycle that never quite ends.
  • Meals — weekday dinners weekdays · ~30 min
    Deciding, cooking and serving dinner, Monday to Friday.
  • Meals — weekend breakfast weekends · ~30 min
    The proper weekend cook-up — the eggs, the pancakes, the slow Saturday.
  • Weekend meals weekly · ~60 min
    The slower cooks — the Sunday roast, the big brunch.
  • Meal planning weekly · ~15 min
    Knowing what this week's dinners are before 5pm does.
  • Groceries weekly · ~60 min
    The living list, the shop, and the staples noticed before they run out.
  • Laundry weekly · ~60 min
    Washing and drying — plus knowing when the uniform is needed by.
  • Laundry — folding weekly · ~30 min
    The mountain on the spare bed, actually put away.
  • Cleaning weekly · ~120 min
    Bathrooms, floors and surfaces, on a rhythm that holds.
  • Tidying & organising weekly · ~60 min
    Resetting rooms, wrangling clutter, finding things homes.
  • Home goods & supplies weekly · ~15 min
    Toilet paper, batteries, light globes — restocked before they're gone.
  • Home maintenance weekly · ~30 min
    The dripping tap, the smoke-alarm battery, the calls to tradies.
  • Home furnishings monthly · ~30 min
    Choosing, buying and replacing what the house is furnished with.
  • Inside plants weekly · ~15 min
    Watered, fed, and kept alive.
  • Mail & admin weekly · ~15 min
    The letters, forms and paperwork that need filing or action.
  • Electronics & IT monthly · ~30 min
    The wifi, the devices, the chargers, and the fixing of all three.
  • Storage & garage monthly · ~30 min
    What's kept, where it lives, and the periodic cull.
  • Hosting monthly · ~60 min
    Having people over — the invite, the food, the house ready.
  • Memories & photos monthly · ~15 min
    Photos sorted, shared, printed and backed up.
  • Pets daily · ~30 min
    Feeding, walking, worming, and the vet.
  • Family calendar & scheduling weekly · ~15 min
    The master view of who's where, when — kept true.

Outside

6 jobs — beyond the front door
  • Garbage & recycling weekly · ~15 min
    Bins out, bins in — and knowing which week is which.
  • Lawn & outside plants weekly · ~60 min
    Mowing, weeding, watering — the yard, kept.
  • Car monthly · ~30 min
    Rego, servicing, fuel, and the dashboard light that's been on for weeks.
  • Packing & unpacking (travel) monthly · ~30 min
    Everyone's bag packed, nothing forgotten — and unpacked after.
  • Travel monthly · ~60 min
    Planning and booking the trips, from the weekender to the big one.
  • Medical & health (adults) monthly · ~30 min
    The grown-ups' own GP, dentist and optometrist — booked before the reminder, scripts refilled.

The Kids

22 jobs — if you have them, they're most of the load

By our weights the kids' jobs add roughly 25 hours a week for a young family — which is why "we split the chores" and "I'm drowning" can both be true in the same house.

  • Morning routine (kids) daily · ~60 min
    Up, dressed, fed, out the door.
  • Bedtime routine (weeknights) weekdays · ~30 min
    Bath, books, bed. Repeat.
  • Bedtime routine — weekends weekends · ~30 min a night
    Both weekend nights — same routine, gentler pace.
  • Middle-of-the-night comfort weekly · ~30 min
    Who gets up when someone small calls out.
  • Bathing & grooming (kids) daily · ~30 min
    Clean kids, cut nails, brushed hair.
  • Nappies & toilet training daily · ~30 min
    Nappies, changes, and the training months.
  • Packing & the nappy bag weekly · ~30 min
    The bag ready before you leave the house, every time.
  • School & kinder runs weekly · ~30 min
    The drop-offs and pick-ups — planned, rostered and driven.
  • After-school coordination weekly · ~60 min
    Who's where after the bell, and how they get home.
  • School forms & admin weekly · ~15 min
    Permission slips, photo days, book lists — returned on time.
  • Activities, lessons & lifts weekly · ~30 min
    Sport, music, swimming — enrolled, paid for, delivered to.
  • Playdates & kids' social life weekly · ~30 min
    Organising playdates, tracking who's friends with whom, and the present for the next party.
  • School holiday care & programs monthly · ~30 min
    Stitching the school holidays together — programs booked, care covered, against two working weeks.
  • School lunches weekdays · ~15 min
    The lunchbox packed and in the bag, five mornings a week.
  • Behaviour & screen time daily · ~15 min
    Setting the limits and holding them — the negotiation, the follow-through, the daily screen battle.
  • Emotional wellbeing (kids) weekly · ~30 min
    Noticing how they're travelling — the friendship worries, the big feelings, and getting help when it's needed.
  • Homework & study support daily · ~30 min
    Sitting with the reader, checking the project's actually started.
  • Grandparents & childcare coordination weekly · ~30 min
    The care roster, and the asking.
  • Medical & health (kids) monthly · ~30 min
    The GP, immunisations, and the sick days.
  • Dental (kids) monthly · ~15 min
    Check-ups booked before the reminder card arrives.
  • First aid & safety monthly · ~15 min
    The kit stocked, the car seats right, the hazards spotted.
  • Clothes & accessories (kids) weekly · ~30 min
    Noticing what's outgrown before the weather turns.

Money

4 jobs — low frequency, high stakes
  • Money & finances monthly · ~30 min
    The budget, the accounts, the bills and subscriptions — and the money conversation.
  • Home purchase, mortgage & insurance monthly · ~60 min
    The loan, the rate, and the policies actually renewed.
  • Health insurance monthly · ~15 min
    The cover right, the claims lodged, the extras used.
  • Estate planning yearly · ~30 min
    Wills, super beneficiaries — the grown-up paperwork, revisited when something changes.

The Good Stuff

15 jobs — the reason the rest is worth running

Relationships, celebrations and each of you staying a person. These are real jobs — someone notices, someone plans — and they're the first to vanish when the split is unfair.

  • Social planning weekly · ~15 min
    The dinners, the catch-ups, the RSVPs.
  • Weekend plans weekly · ~15 min
    Something to look forward to, actually organised.
  • Marriage & romance weekly · ~30 min
    Date nights, and the relationship itself, tended on purpose.
  • Adult friendships weekly · ~15 min
    Keeping your own friendships alive, not just the couple ones.
  • Extended family weekly · ~15 min
    The calls, the visits, the birthdays remembered.
  • Aging & elder-parent care weekly · ~30 min
    The appointments and admin for parents who need a hand.
  • Holidays & Christmas monthly · ~60 min
    The season planned — gifts, travel, hosting, magic.
  • Birthday celebrations (kids) monthly · ~30 min
    The party, the cake, the class invite list.
  • Gifts (family) monthly · ~30 min
    The right gift, on time, wrapped.
  • Charity & community monthly · ~15 min
    The giving, the volunteering, the school-fete shift.
  • Spirituality weekly · ~15 min
    Whatever practice your household keeps.
  • Grooming & wardrobe weekly · ~15 min
    Haircuts booked, wardrobes current.
  • Self care weekly · ~15 min
    Each of you getting real time that's actually yours.
  • Partner coach weekly · ~15 min
    Backing your partner's goals — protecting the gym window, the course.
  • Birth control monthly · ~15 min
    Scripts filled, appointments made, decisions shared.

How to use this list, together

Twenty minutes, one couch, no accusations. The list does the confronting so neither of you has to.

  1. Read it side by side. Print it or share this page. The first pass is just recognition: most couples find a dozen jobs one partner didn't know existed — that's the invisible work becoming visible, and it's the whole point.
  2. Make it yours — cross out, add, and re-time. No pets, no lawn, no kids? Cross them out. Something we've missed — a second car, a big garden, a health condition, an elderly parent? Add it. And where our weight is wrong for your life — a newborn turns "dishes" into a different job — write in your own time estimate. This is your household's list now, not ours.
  3. Name the current owner of each job, honestly. Not who helps — who notices, plans and does it end-to-end. If one of you notices and the other executes on request, the noticer owns it. Expect this step to be quietly revealing.
  4. Weigh it, don't count it. Tally hours, not jobs — the frequency and effort weights are on every card above. Twenty monthly jobs can weigh less than dishes and dinners alone.
  5. Then split it on purpose. The free two-minute Split Check runs this exact list interactively — skip what doesn't apply, weight each job to your reality, and see the split you're actually running as a number you can both point at.
Where this list comes from (and who's writing this). This is the real starter deck from Lyven, our household app for couples — every household in the app begins from these cards, one owner per job, no scoreboard. If you've read Eve Rodsky's Fair Play, you'll recognise the single-owner idea; her deck is ~100 physical cards sold as a book-and-deck system, while this list is our own, built for two-adult households and free to use with or without our app. We also keep an honest comparison of the Fair Play deck and the chore apps, including options that may suit your household better than ours.

Questions people actually ask

How many jobs does it take to run a household?
By our count, 68 distinct jobs across five areas. A couple without kids typically runs about 45 of them — roughly 24 hours a week by our deck's weights. With young kids it's about 64 jobs and roughly 48 hours a week. Most couples can name about 20 from memory; the gap between 20 and 64 is where the resentment lives.
Is this the Fair Play list of tasks?
No — Eve Rodsky's Fair Play deck is roughly 100 physical cards, sold as a book and deck rather than published as a free list. This is Lyven's own deck: the same single-owner philosophy, in our own language, sized for two-adult households, and free. If you're weighing the deck against the apps, our honest comparison covers both.
Is there a printable version or a spreadsheet?
The print button above gives you the whole list as a clean checklist. If you were about to build the spreadsheet version: the free Split Check already is one — it walks this exact list interactively, weights each job by real effort, and emails you the result.
Why do the "nice" jobs like self care and date nights count?
Because someone still has to notice and plan them, and they're the first jobs dropped when a split is unfair — usually from the same person's side of the ledger. A household where one partner's friendships, fitness and downtime keep quietly evaporating has a split problem, even if the chores look even.
We'd split it evenly by job count. Isn't that fair?
Counting jobs misleads because the weights differ so much: a daily 30-minute job is 3.5 hours a week, a monthly 15-minute one barely registers. Thirty light jobs can weigh less than dishes, dinners and the morning routine combined. Fair means weighing hours and effort, then choosing the split on purpose — which doesn't have to be 50/50, just deliberate.
What do we do once we've been through the list?
Give every job one owner end-to-end, then protect the split with a short weekly reset — ten minutes on what's coming and what needs rebalancing, because every split drifts without maintenance. That loop (own the jobs, reset weekly) is exactly what Lyven exists to make stick.

Now see how your household splits it

The two-minute Split Check runs this list interactively — skip what doesn't apply, weight each job to your reality, and see the split you're actually running. Free, no sign-up, better done together.

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