Chores, Chores and More Chores

My children have been doing chores for several years now (well at least the 8 and 6 year old). I am trying to gradually add in things for my 4 year old, but she is still in need of a lot of assistance. Despite the regular assignments of kitchen duty, putting up laundry, etc. their rooms seemed to always be a mess. This brings a lot of nagging and fussing in our home so I came up with a plan. I read a lot of organizing books and articles and they all (or most anyway) say to do a particular chore each day. A light bulb went off in my head one day during one of those nagging, frustrating "your room is a mess" moments. I took an index card for each of them and put this on it: Monday- Desk Tuesday- Bathroom Wednesday- Dresser Thursday- Closet Friday- Nightstand and shelf I explained to them that on each of the days that this is the area you are to work on each day. We put it up in their room where they are able to see it often. It has taken a few weeks to get into the habit, but it seems to work well so far. Yes, they still forget or have to be nicely reminded. I figure if it keeps me from nagging them, and I just simply remind them to check their card it's a good thing for us all.