maia comments on Rationalist households: What can London learn from its predecessors? - Less Wrong

7 Post author: KnaveOfAllTrades 23 August 2013 07:56AM

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Comment author: maia 23 August 2013 03:08:34PM 11 points [-]

Use tools wisely.

Expensure for debt resolution. Just use it, don't tabulate debts by hand, there is no need to.

If you are sharing groceries, set up a Google doc spreadsheet for the weekly grocery list.

Whiteboards are invaluable for sharing information in a household with people who are in and out intermittently, and can hold a weekly menu (again, if you're sharing food).

Obligatory plug for our software: Chore distribution is kind of difficult; schedules sort of work, but they're not ideal for giving people chores they dislike the least and allowing flexibility. If you're interested in using a free market system to distribute chores, we wrote a web app for that purpose. We've used it for ~7 months to great effect. If you're interested in using it, I will personally give you tech support.

The house I lived in last semester used all these things and was extraordinarily efficient at providing meals and a clean house to all residents.

Also, I second the comments about having official house rules negotiated explicitly, and setting times to renegotiate them if necessary. Reasonable people can have different preferences about states of the house/apartment, and when that happens it's very important to air these concerns and come up with explicit solutions (or compromises if you absolutely have to).