Draw a random household chore from 180, each with an honest estimate of how long it actually takes -- filterable by room.
Mostly because of a misjudgement of scale. A task that has been on a list for three weeks has usually grown in the imagination into something much larger than it is, and the actual job turns out to take eleven minutes -- which is why the single most effective intervention is writing an honest time estimate next to it. The second reason is that household work is famously invisible: nobody notices a clean floor, they notice a dirty one, so the reward for doing it is the absence of a complaint. That makes it unusually dependent on either habit or an external prompt, and unusually vulnerable to being deferred in favour of anything with a visible result. Two things reliably help. Reduce the unit -- one drawer rather than the kitchen -- and remove the decision, which is what a random draw does. Deciding what to clean is a surprisingly large share of the effort of cleaning.
This generator draws from 180 household chores across six areas, and every one carries an honest estimate of how long it takes. The estimates are the point: a chore you can do while the kettle boils is a different kind of decision from one that costs a Saturday, and most procrastination is a failure to tell the two apart.
Every result here is drawn using crypto.getRandomValues() -- the Web Crypto API's cryptographically secure randomness -- instead of Math.random(), so it's genuinely unpredictable, not just statistically random. Learn more.
Deciding what to do when the whole house needs it, splitting chores fairly between a household, building a cleaning rota, giving children a task without an argument, and using up twenty spare minutes productively.
Generate draws one chore at random from 180 using cryptographically secure randomness, never repeating the one on screen. Filter by room, and set the amount higher with No Duplicates on to deal out a week's rota or split a list between people.
A sample of what this generator can draw, spread evenly across the full list:
They assume an averagely tidy home and no unusual disasters, and they are deliberately honest rather than encouraging -- cleaning an oven that has not been done in a year really does take an hour. Where a job is much quicker if done regularly, the entry says both numbers.
Set the amount to however many tasks you want, turn on No Duplicates, and deal them out. Drawing removes the argument about who chose what, which is usually the actual dispute rather than the work itself.
Because deciding what to clean is a surprisingly large part of the effort of cleaning. Removing the choice removes the step where most people stall, which is the same reason a rota works better than good intentions.
Draw a few and read the estimates -- there are plenty here under ten minutes, and the descriptions say so. Wiping the worktops, cleaning the toaster tray or clearing one surface all fit into a kettle's boil.
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