The chore heatmap

Published on 2024-01-24, 573 words

The Chore Heatmap is a spreadsheet template I use for keeping track of recurring tasks like household chores. You can download it here if you want to try it out.

Basic usage

List out the jobs that have to be done, and set a target frequency (in days) for each task. For example, every room needs to be vacuumed once a week, but the windows and the fridge only need to be cleaned every two weeks.

I populate the Last Done column by-hand, with the date that I most recently completed the chore.

The Next Due Date and Days Remaining columns are populated by formulas. For example, I vacuumed the bedroom on January 23rd. Since the frequency is 7 days, the formula counts forward 7 days from January 23rd.

Days remaining is a countdown; I subtract today’s date from the value calculated in column D.

That way, when I update column C, the Next Due Date and Days Remaining formulas are re-evaluated:

The goal is, of course, to complete tasks on or before the Next Due Date. But, when I fall behind and a task is past-due, then the Days Remaining column yields a negative number:

Prioritization…

Suppose I’ve fallen behind on my kitchen cleaning duties, and I have both of these tasks overdue:

Is it higher priority that I vacuum the floor or clean the fridge? Quantitatively, they’re both two days overdue (-2 days remaining) - but a different way of looking at this is that vacuuming is 2/7ths of a cycle overdue, while cleaning the fridge is only 1/7th (2/14) of a cycle overdue.

So the template actually has a sixth column, Priority, dividing Days Remaining by Frequency. I also multiply by -1, so higher numbers mean higher priority. The formula is =-E/B.

I like to use automatic color formatting to color-code the Priority column - thus the Heatmap. The darker green items are safe, while the red ones are the ones I need to pay attention to.