Running a household takes 68 distinct jobs, by Lyven's count, and most couples can name about 20 of them from memory. This is the complete list our free household app for couples is built 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.
Which of these land on you? The free Split Check shows you in two minutes.
Weights from Lyven's own starter deck · page last updated: 19 July 2026.
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.
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. If you only want the count and the five areas rather than all 68 rows, how many household tasks there are is the short version.
Worth knowing before you use the number: the 68 is our own count, from the starter deck the app ships with, not a figure out of a study. One job means one end-to-end responsibility, so "groceries" is a single job carrying the list, the noticing, the planning and the shop, rather than four separate entries. Each job then carries how often it comes up and a rough effort weight per occurrence, which is what turns a count into hours.
The weekly hours assume a realistic week rather than a worst case, weekday dinners five nights rather than seven. On that basis a couple with no kids runs 45 of the 68 jobs, a household with young kids runs 64, one with school-age kids runs 63, and an empty nest runs 44. Yours is whatever's left once you cross out what doesn't apply and add what's missing.
In full-time-job terms, which is how most people ask it: a standard Australian working week is 38 hours, so 24 hours of housework a week is about 0.6 of a full-time job for a couple with no kids, and 48 hours with young kids is about 1.3 full-time jobs. That sits on top of whatever paid work the two of you already do, and it's the number worth sitting with, not the 68.
Most household chores lists hand you the doing and stop there. This one gives you the whole responsibility. 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.
If you want the same 68 set out as responsibilities to divide between two people rather than as a list to work through, the list of household responsibilities for couples is the same deck, weighted and paired up.
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.
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.
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.
Twenty minutes, one couch, no accusations. The list does the confronting so neither of you has to.
Four of these jobs carry enough hidden work to have their own walkthrough, and they are the ones couples most often assume are already shared: the shared to-do list, meal planning, the shared grocery list, and who runs what when you move in together.
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.
See your split, free → Start Lyven free