When my husband (then boyfriend) and I started living together, I wanted to make sure that I would not end up in the trap that so many women fall into – working full time and still doing more of the work around the house.

So I decided we would clean the house together, at the same time, working equally long. We also cooked every other day, even though I hate cooking and, frankly, am terrible at it.

We thought it would be the perfect arrangement. Everyone shares the chores equally, then no one has anything to complain about right?

Nope!

We both hated our cleaning days, got annoyed with each other about unimportant things and never felt good about how the house and garden looked.

After far too many years we came up with an arrangement that removed practically ALL of the problems we used to run into trying to keep the house clean, tidy, and clutter-free.

Rather than me being annoyed when I can’t find things quickly because someone (guess who!) doesn’t understand the concept of things having designated places, I now find things easily and enjoy the sight of pretty things in their right places.

Rather than me cooking food that not even my lovely Springer Spaniel Lottie liked, we now eat healthy, tasty food every day.

Instead of me dragging the vacuum cleaner up and down the stairs to vacuum before I even find the floors dirty, I now enjoy folding laundry while watching something interesting, and our floors are as clean as my husband likes them to be.

(Well, mostly, living with dogs and cats means living with a certain amount of hair on the sofas and on the floors…)

And to this day, we still use this method for keeping the house organised and minimising our time spent doing (and arguing about) chores around the house. The house stays clean, tasty food is on the table, and everyone is happy with their share of the work.

Want to see how we do it?