STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Who’s doing household chores? There’s an app for that – in an effort to make “invisible work visible”, Swedish engineering students have developed an app for families to organise and track housework.
Among the early adopters are Marko, 40, and Neha Sarcevic, 37, a married couple of business owners living in the wealthy Stockholm suburb of Taby with two small children, aged three and four.
“We thought, okay, let’s try this out, maybe it can solve many of our issues that we have at home,” Neha told AFP.
Her husband agreed, saying the app – which has some 2,000 users so far – “brought up the conversation at home. ‘Like, okay, so if things aren’t being done, who’s responsible for them?’”
Neha scrolled through the tasks specific to their family on her mobile screen: hanging up the children’s coats when they get home, emptying their gym bags, washing up, taking out the compost bin.
The setup is simple: users insert chores of their choice into the app.
Other family members can then follow their progress and send a “reminder” if a task is not done in time. Neha said she loved the feature, “but I don’t use it very often”, prompting a burst of laughter from her husband. The idea for the app was born a year ago when engineering student Victor Fredrikson’s father got tired of reminding him to tidy up his room and wash his clothes.
“So finally one day he basically had enough and said like, why don’t you just programme an app so I don’t have to nag you all the time about getting your laundry,” the 23-year-old CEO told AFP.
“And I took that pretty literally and talked to my classmate” – 23-year-old co-creator Marcus Pahlman – and Accord was born.
The idea, Fredrikson explained, is to turn household chores into a rewarding experience.
“Accord was our sort of answer to achieving family harmony and tackling these problems that like almost every family face on a daily basis.”
The app – which officially launched in early September – allows family members to show their appreciation when someone completes a task.
By revealing who does what around the house, the platform can also help address the gender gap that remains for domestic chores.
“We want people to talk about it more and be more involved in the family discussion about household chores and making invisible work visible, and see actually who does what and help start that discussion,” Floreteng said.
