Full Vertical Ownership Theory of Household Management
The Full Vertical Ownership Theory of household management is a system that my partner and I use to streamline running the house. It’s one of the core systems we have in place in our home to simplify and reduce complexity. The idea behind this theory is that it is significantly more efficient if one person in the household wholly owns a vertical end-to-end.
It also is an effective system for sharing the mental load. In its ideal implementation, the person who does not own a vertical spends zero time thinking about that vertical in a given week.
Overview
In the Full Vertical Ownership Theory, household work is divided into verticals with as little overlap as possible, and each vertical is assigned to a single owner.
This results in:
Reduced communication and coordination overhead – it makes it easier to move faster and more efficiently, and
Independence – the vertical owner is trusted to make decisions as needed in that vertical, and in turn, this spurs innovation and automation
Clear ownership – things don’t fall through the cracks, fewer errors occur, and if new tasks pop up, it’s often clear who owns them
In Practice
To illustrate the theory, let’s take an example of some verticals. My biggest vertical is the food vertical. I own everything about food end to end, including grocery shopping and cooking. My husband doesn’t have to think about food; there is always something to eat in the fridge, and dinner magically appears on the table each evening around 6 pm.
Here is how this achieves the goals we listed above:
Reduced communication and coordination overhead: I decide what we eat each week and do one weekly grocery shop online. I don’t need to check what groceries my partner needs for any nights he is cooking and then go back and forth if something is out of stock. I can do it all directly on my own without any discussion. We also don’t need to plan who is cooking when every week. It’s just me.
Independence: I make all the decisions independently. Because I do this, I’ve also developed the tools to do this efficiently: I have an 8-week meal plan and grocery list that we rotate through, which makes grocery shopping a breeze.
Clear ownership: My son recently started a preschool, and we didn’t have to discuss who would own his packed lunches – clearly, that lies in the food vertical, so I need to own it.
My other verticals are finances (excl. taxes), children's clothing, and travel.
My husband owns cleaning, including laundry, cleaning the house, scheduling and managing the cleaner, cleaning up after meals, etc. I don’t have to think about cleaning at all. I put clothing in the laundry hamper, which magically reappears clean and folded in my closet later. His other big verticals include childcare admin (everything to do with au pair and pre-school), child health, house maintenance and taxes.
How to choose verticals
The best way to assign vertical ownership is to play to your strengths. I’m much more interested in food and a better cook than my husband (I read recipe books like novels). He has a much higher standard for house cleanliness and tidiness than me, so it makes sense for him to own that vertical. If you enjoy doing the work in your vertical, at least partially, that’s the best situation.
That said, all verticals are learnable, and some verticals are big. It’s worth doing a time inventory for a week to assess how much time you’re each putting in so that verticals can be allocated fairly (according to whatever version of fairness you define). We’ve had to shift some verticals from me to my husband to balance the load (I was more than happy to hand over taxes!).
When handing over a vertical, or when moving from both of you working on a vertical to one of you owning the vertical, there is a period of adaptation. The vertical owner needs to be open to feedback, and you both need to agree on the standards for what good looks like.
One crucial step is being clear on where the verticals start and end. For example, we put clearing up after meals in the “cleaning” vertical. Some people could put this in the food vertical, but we agree it goes with cleaning. It doesn’t matter where you put it; what matters most is that you both agree and state clearly where the vertical starts and ends.
Owning verticals doesn’t mean you can never discuss them. For example, I might have two Airbnbs I’m deciding on when I book travel and will ask for my partner's perspective. We include each other when needed, but we always know who is driving and who owns getting things done.
Closing
In closing, almost every couple will naturally have some degree of vertical ownership. We go further than most and use the model to cover all tasks. We’re not at the stage where children can get involved, but as our child gets older, we’re hoping to give him small verticals, too. If you’re overwhelmed by the work and coordination it takes to manage a family, try it.
To get you started, you can download a planning gsheet here with a starting list of verticals.