Group tasks by room and by how often they happen
Walk through the home room by room and write down what needs doing in each one, rather than starting from a generic template you found online. A kitchen entry might cover dishwashing after meals, wiping counters, and a weekly fridge clean-out; a living room entry might just be daily tidying and a weekly vacuum. Room-by-room grouping matches how she'll actually move through the day, so the list reads like a map of the house rather than an abstract set of rules.
Within each room, tag every item as daily, weekly or occasional. Daily items are the ones she should do without being asked; weekly items are the ones worth a quick verbal reminder until they become habit; occasional items (seasonal cleaning, ironing a specific fabric, watering plants during a trip) are the ones most likely to get missed simply because nobody wrote down when they're due. Separating the three prevents the common complaint that 'she forgot' when the real issue was that the task was never written down as recurring in the first place.
- Kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, living areas, laundry
- Daily: done without a reminder
- Weekly: needs a nudge until it's routine
- Occasional: seasonal or trip-dependent tasks
Choose a format she can actually use
A task list only works if it gets opened. A single printed page taped inside a cupboard, or a one-page shared note on a phone, tends to survive far longer than a multi-tab spreadsheet or a long document nobody has time to scroll through. Keep sentences short and avoid brand names, appliance model numbers or household slang she hasn't learned yet; describe the action instead ('the machine by the sink for washing clothes' works better than a brand name on day one).
Translation matters more than most households expect. A list written only in English or only in your own household's mix of languages puts the burden of translation on her, in the middle of the actual chore, which is when mistakes happen. Where you can, write or have the list translated into her first language, and keep both versions side by side so you can both refer to the same document without a language gap turning into a missed task.
Keep it a living document, not a one-time handout
A task list written in the first week and never touched again drifts out of date the moment your routine changes: a new baby, an elderly parent moving in, a new pet, or simply a different work schedule all change what 'daily' and 'weekly' mean in your home. Set a habit of updating the list whenever something changes, rather than only during the periodic check-in conversations you're already having about how things are going.
Keep the task list separate from any day-by-day time schedule you also run. The list answers what needs doing and how often; a schedule answers when in the day it happens. Combining the two into one document usually makes both harder to read, and it also means one change (say, a new occasional task) forces you to rewrite the whole schedule instead of adding a single line.