Household
Housework stays invisible until somebody resents it.
Beatrice makes it visible without turning it into a fight. Everything the house needs sits in one shared pool, anyone can pick something up, and the app never ranks the people doing it.
I built the household half first, and it took me longer than it should have to notice it's the same problem as the friendship half, in different clothes.
The pool
Every job lives somewhere. Anyone can take one.
One pool holds everything the house needs, and it’s the same pool everybody is looking at. Claim a job and it’s yours. Finish it and it comes off with your name on it, so whoever cleaned the gutters in the rain isn’t invisible by dinner.
Kitchen
The house this week: 0 min
Descale the kettle
In the pool. About 10 minutes
Clean out the fridge
In the pool. About 25 minutes
Empty the dishwasher
In the pool. About 8 minutes
pick a room on the house. everything in it is fair game.
Effort in minutes
A light bulb and an hour of shoveling are not the same job.
Most chore apps score a job one to three, which flattens a two-minute bulb and a forty-five-minute driveway into almost the same thing, and everybody in the house knows it. Beatrice counts minutes, so the credit matches the work.
the oven and the driveway, tied. sure.
Swap the furnace filter
Every three months. Last one due March 1.
done
Done late, so the next one counts from the day you actually did it. It never comes back already overdue.
The slow jobs
It comes back when it should, and never already late.
Weekly chores are easy to remember. The ones that get lost come around every three months, or twice a year, and most apps reschedule them from the old due date, so a filter you changed late comes back already overdue. Beatrice counts from whichever is later.
No rank, anywhere
- First place.
- A penalty for a quiet week.
- A sentence about who did less.
The minutes add up and the totals are there for anyone to see, and the app never says a word about them. Points only go up. This week starts over on Sunday so nobody is stuck at the bottom, and all time never resets, so the effort stacks.
This week
Resets Sunday
No numbers beside the names. Each person can set their own weekly capacity, so a month of night shifts counts for what it is.
Questions about the house
The three everyone asks.
Does it work if I live alone?
How does everyone else join?
Does it rank anyone?
Also in Beatrice
Lists, the calendar and the reminders live in the same house.
Make the work visible.
Beatrice is free while it's in beta, and it's on iPhone. One person sets up the house and everyone else joins with a code.
