Things can get competitive in a family, especially between siblings. But there’s one task that you won’t see any one jumping at the chance to do: cleaning.

If you’re struggling to get everyone to do their part in keeping your home spic and span, try turning the cleaning into an all-out competition. You’ll be surprised how eager everyone is to tidy up when there are bragging rights and prizes involved.

On your marks, get set, clean!

The basis of this competition is to get as many rooms of your home clean in as little time as possible. Each member of the family is assigned a different room (or multiple rooms, depending on how many people are involved) and will be timed on how quickly they can get the room clean.

Things to keep in mind:

• The size of the rooms. Try to keep the competition as fair as possible.
• The state of the rooms. Is one room much messier than all the others?
• The age of the competitors. Little ones might be better suited to clean their own rooms than scrub the kitchen floors.

Rules:

1. Each family member is assigned a room or rooms to clean. He or she will be timed on how long it takes them to clean each room. The timer will begin when the competitor begins cleaning, and ends when they leave the room.
2. A set of pre-established tasks must be completed in each room in order for the room to be considered “clean.” (See printable for ideas on cleaning tasks for each room).
3. A winner will be selected based on the fastest time and/or who completed all of the tasks assigned to that room. Competitors can only win if all tasks were completed before the timer finished.
4. The winner will receive bragging rights of “most clean” and a predetermined prize

Prize ideas:

• Extra television or game time one weeknight.
• A favorite meal or treat.
• Movie night (with a film of his or her choosing).
• Chore suspension (if everyone has weekly chores, winner is exempt for one week).