On dishes -- my challenge was/is to wash a "replacement" dish for every clean dish I take out to use. Not after eating; when I take it out. The sink is in the kitchen, I can see the clock from it, I can time my food while I wash dishes, and I can go stir between every dish I wash or every two forks or whatever. At first I had to keep reminding myself (I started this last spring), but now I'm so used to it that I actually zone out while waiting for my morning oatmeal to boil and just wash until the sink's empty.
Cleaning behind furniture -- get some plastic eggs on sale after Easter. Get small candy. Put a piece of candy in the plastic egg (if the egg doesn't close tightly, tape it shut, otherwise it'll pop open when dropped). Drop it behind the couch or toss it under the bed. Start pulling things out from underneath. When you clean that far, you can eat the candy. (Make sure it's worth cleaning that far to eat it, though; eggs full of candy behind your couch will just make life worse if it's not worth that much cleaning.) Usually by the time I get that far, it's only a couple minutes to finish the job, but if not, I stop and do it again another day.
Folding and putting away laundry -- make a game of it. Like, maybe fold in order of the rainbow? Find a red item. Fold it. Find an orange item, fold it. And so on. Or pick a different order -- anything that you can remember. (I personally do the three primary colors, the three secondary colors, then brown.) If something has more than one color, it can be used for any of them. Black and white items are wild cards. Pairing socks gives special powers -- pick anything -- maybe they let you reverse the rainbow and go in the other order, maybe they let you have a treat (keep track and have it at the end), maybe they make life harder and the next thing you have to fold has to be a specific item, like a shirt, of the appropriate color. (Socks are actually really easy for me, because I feel like they're lonely without their mates, so I mate them the minute I have two matching. But you could implement a "all socks have to be mated as soon as you have both" rule, or a "every fifth item must be a pair of socks" rule, or something.) ...To be honest, I am still trying to get this to work on a long-term basis; it keeps me folding once I start, but I still have trouble starting.
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Cleaning behind furniture -- get some plastic eggs on sale after Easter. Get small candy. Put a piece of candy in the plastic egg (if the egg doesn't close tightly, tape it shut, otherwise it'll pop open when dropped). Drop it behind the couch or toss it under the bed. Start pulling things out from underneath. When you clean that far, you can eat the candy. (Make sure it's worth cleaning that far to eat it, though; eggs full of candy behind your couch will just make life worse if it's not worth that much cleaning.) Usually by the time I get that far, it's only a couple minutes to finish the job, but if not, I stop and do it again another day.
Folding and putting away laundry -- make a game of it. Like, maybe fold in order of the rainbow? Find a red item. Fold it. Find an orange item, fold it. And so on. Or pick a different order -- anything that you can remember. (I personally do the three primary colors, the three secondary colors, then brown.) If something has more than one color, it can be used for any of them. Black and white items are wild cards. Pairing socks gives special powers -- pick anything -- maybe they let you reverse the rainbow and go in the other order, maybe they let you have a treat (keep track and have it at the end), maybe they make life harder and the next thing you have to fold has to be a specific item, like a shirt, of the appropriate color. (Socks are actually really easy for me, because I feel like they're lonely without their mates, so I mate them the minute I have two matching. But you could implement a "all socks have to be mated as soon as you have both" rule, or a "every fifth item must be a pair of socks" rule, or something.) ...To be honest, I am still trying to get this to work on a long-term basis; it keeps me folding once I start, but I still have trouble starting.
I like the star chart idea, too.