Tody, Sweepy, Google Keep and Microsoft To Do compared: dirt indicators, auto-assigned chores, shared checklists and reminders to split housework without rows.
Housework has two permanent problems: remembering what is actually due, and sharing it out without an argument about who does more. A good app attacks both, turning invisible labour into a visible list and, depending on the household, a neutral referee. The 4 apps in this guide take different routes to that end. Tody and Sweepy are purpose-built cleaning tools, one based on dirt that visibly builds up and one on gamified assignment and a family leaderboard; Google Keep and Microsoft To Do are general task apps that cost nothing and already sit in most people's accounts, so they need no new habit to start. Choose by how much structure the household actually wants rather than by feature count.
Tody replaces rigid rota days with dirt indicators that fill over time, so you clean what genuinely needs it. Rated 4.8 stars.
Tody rethinks the whole premise: instead of a calendar telling you off for missing a Tuesday, every task carries a visual dirt indicator that builds up at its own pace according to the frequency you set, so the living-room dusting and the oven cleaning are never treated as the same urgency. Rooms are organised separately, chores can be split between everyone in the household, and watching the entire house turn green is quietly compulsive; it is the highest-rated app of its kind at 4.8 stars. The costs are deliberately old-fashioned: it is a paid app, though a fair one-off purchase, the initial room-and-task setup takes a real evening, and there is no full-featured free version to trial beyond.
Sweepy auto-assigns chores and runs a weekly family leaderboard, turning points into the referee that gets children cleaning.
Sweepy treats housework as a family game. It builds the daily cleaning plan automatically, dividing tasks between members according to their availability, awards points per completed chore and publishes a weekly leaderboard — who cleaned the most? — which turns out to be a surprisingly effective motivator for children and adults alike. Where Tody appeals to the satisfaction of order, Sweepy appeals to competition and makes the distribution of labour impossible to argue about. The friction sits in the business model and upkeep: the best features require a Premium subscription, localization outside English is patchy so some households hit translated screens, and any points system only works while everyone keeps logging jobs honestly.
Google Keep covers shared chores with zero learning curve: quick shared checklists, time and place reminders, completely free.
Google Keep is the simplest, fastest note app most people already own, and it maps onto cleaning with no setup ceremony. Build a shared checklist per room, tick jobs off together, set a reminder for a time or even a place, and drop in voice notes or photos of a problem area; everything syncs instantly through a Google account, the app is entirely free and ad-free, and its 4.7-star rating reflects that reliability. Its limits are the price of simplicity. There are no folders or sub-notes for structuring a whole household system, it is unsuited to long notes or anything resembling project management, and text formatting is extremely basic. For one flat-shared list it is perfect; for rotating schedules, use a dedicated app.
Microsoft To Do handles recurring chores cleanly: assign a job, set its repeat rule and stop remembering, free inside the Microsoft world.
Microsoft To Do is a free task app that is cleaner and more capable than its reputation suggests. Its standout My Day view helps plan a realistic daily list, and for housework the killer feature is recurrence — assign the bathroom to every Friday, the filters to every month, add steps, reminders or attachments, and the job reappears without anyone thinking about it. Lists can be shared and assigned to partners or flatmates, and it slots neatly into Outlook and the rest of Microsoft 365. It deliberately is not a project system like Notion or Todoist, its advantages shrink outside the Microsoft ecosystem, and visual customisation is sparse. For repeat chores on a budget, it may be all a household needs.
Pros
Completely free, with no artificial limits
My Day view for realistic planning
Lists, steps, reminders and attachments
Cons
Less for projects than Notion or Todoist
Best inside the Microsoft ecosystem
Few visual customisation options
Download price only. In-app purchases and subscriptions may cost extra.
Questions & answers
What makes Tody's system different?
It mimics how dirt actually accumulates: every task has an indicator that shifts from green toward red based on elapsed time and the frequency you set, so living-room dusting 'gets dirty' faster than the oven. You open the app and see at a glance what needs attention, with no calendar scolding you for skipping a day. Psychologically that matters — cleaning answers a visible need instead of an arbitrary duty — and a fully green house is absurdly satisfying. The catch is spending an honest evening setting every room and frequency first.
How do I share out the chores without it ending in a row?
By making the invisible visible, which is exactly what these apps do: when Sweepy shows each person's points or Tody logs who did what, the argument shifts from perceptions ('I always clean more') to data. Hard-won advice: agree the initial task list and all frequencies together, because that conversation is where the real negotiation happens, assign by preference where possible — some people loathe ironing but do not mind the bathroom — and let Sweepy's leaderboard act as a neutral referee with the children rather than as a scoreboard between adults.
How often should each cleaning job be done?
The standard benchmarks these apps ship with: kitchen and sink daily; bathrooms, vacuuming or mopping floors and changing bed linen weekly; dusting surfaces every one to two weeks; fridge, oven and microwave monthly; windows, filters and textiles such as curtains and the sofa every two to three months. Treat them as starting points, not law. Tody lets you tune every frequency to the household, and pets, children and allergies change all of them; that customisation is precisely where the purpose-built apps beat a paper rota.
More related apps
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