About this episode

Lisa Woodruff discusses the essential housework necessary for life and shares findings from her study on the topic.

I asked what is the basic essential housework that is necessary for life? Level one is the foundation of The Productive Home CEO Theoretical Framework that starts with essential house work. I did my own study and I am sharing my findings. You might be as surprised as I was. What is Essential Housework? How is housework defined? Housework is something you do for yourself or you pay for someone to do it. And how much time are you spending on it? On average about 23 hours per week; 3 hours for laundry, 6 hours for cleaning, and 11 hours for food preparation. I know it's hard to believe. I surveyed a panel of 1000 people, ages 16 - 65. I divided up the panel to closely reflect the US Census ethnicities to account for all different household types. I bet you would think that there would be a stark difference in what men and women determined was housework and taking it one step further, what was essential. Nope, 90% of the panel (men and women of all ethnicities) agreed on 19 of the 78 items as housework and that they were essential. Now, I say essential because I want to point out that not everyone owns a home or a car. And I wanted to ask people from all walks of life because…

People in this episode

Host: Lisa Woodruff

Topics covered

• essential housework
• Productive Home CEO
• time study
• housework definition
• laundry
• cleaning
• food preparation

Keywords

• housework
• Productive Home CEO
• time management
• laundry
• cleaning
• food preparation
• survey
• essential tasks

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: US Census

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• 715 - Perspectives. He Said. She Said. Happy Father's Day · June 19, 2026 · 25 min
• 714 - 10 Simple Ideas for Self-Care This Summer · June 12, 2026 · 20 min
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