This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sam Kelly, author of the "Notice and Do Guide." It has been edited for length and clarity.
About two years ago, I hit my breaking point. I was growing my business and (like most moms) handling all the mental load of running a household, from thinking about what groceries we needed to making doctors' appointments.
One day, I walked into my shared bedroom closet and saw that my husband's clothes were all over the place. This happened regularly, and I would straighten out his shelves to put away his clothes that I'd just washed and folded. But this time, I knew something had to change.
That moment led to lots of hard but necessary conversations with Chas, who I've been married to for 14 years. We needed to redistribute the domestic labor in our household.
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My husband and I created a more equitable division
I wasn't happy teaching Chas how to notice things that needed to be done. Uprooting generational patterns and social conditioning that we'd both been taught was so much work. But no one else was going to save me. If I wanted things to change in my family, I would have to lead the effort.
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I started pulling the curtain back on everything that was going on in my head. Take, for example, grocery shopping. Chas might see me go to the store. But he didn't see me make the list, consider our three kids' food preferences, inventory what we already had in the cabinets, find a good time to go shopping, and put all the food away — let alone cook.
I wanted him to see that I was the engine, keeping our family moving forward. But I was overheating and burned out. This was a long and hard process, but it worked. Over the course of a year, Chas and I were able to make our household a lot more equitable.
I realized I was perpetuating the cycle with my kids
One Friday night, I was making a chore chart for our kids, who are 12, 10, and 6. In the middle of writing it, I had a lightning bolt moment: I was teaching my two daughters and my son exactly what I had spent a year trying to unlearn with my husband — that it was the woman's job to manage the home.
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If I made a chore chart, they would do the tasks. But I was showing them that the wife or mother should notice what needs to be done and delegate household work. I wanted to do better than that in order to break the generational cycle of invisible domestic management falling on women.
The kids need to notice and complete at least one chore a day
That's when I came up with the idea for a "notice and do" approach. It rewards kids for seeing the things that have to be done around the house, not just completing chores.
Here's how it works: my kids have their "Big Three," the tasks that I expect them to do every day. In my house, the "Big Three" are making your bed, checking if the dishwasher needs to be unloaded or loaded, and checking if laundry needs to be started. The emphasis is on checking (though the kids also have to complete the task if it needs attention).
In addition to the "Big Three," my kids need to notice and complete one additional chore of their choosing. We talk a lot about doing a "reset" of a room or area. Resetting involves looking for things that are out of place — items draped over the back of chairs, trash on the floor, or piles on the dining table — and then putting them away.
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The approach requires communication, but that's a good thing
Communication is key in any household. Now that Chas and I are both doing domestic tasks, like writing grocery lists, we have to talk about who's doing what. We model that with the kids too. After they've completed their "notice and do" item for the day, they need to tell us, which encourages more conversation than just checking something off a list.
Rather than praising them for, say, picking up the playroom, I thank them for noticing that it needed to be done. That's the skill I really want to build: independently spotting issues that need to be taken care of. That will serve them in school, home life, and business.
The kids also have to communicate with each other. If one of them notices that laundry needs to be done and starts a load, they talk with the other two, who switch and sort the clothes.
Finally, we discussed why we're doing this. My kids know about the invisible labor involved in maintaining a household, and they understand that everyone in a home should share in that work.
