A recent survey of 300 married women sponsored by Mighty Putty revealed that while 94 percent of married women maintain a Honey-Do list, a whopping 78 percent of those tasks remain unfinished for weeks, months or even years. Apparently, many men have the first of never circled on their calendar to tackle those chores.

"Not surprisingly, many of the "Honey-Do" tasks involve some kind of basic household repair -- hanging shelves, repairing leaky pipes, or fixing cracked walls and damaged furniture," said Bill McAlister, spokesperson for Mighty Putty. The two tasks most frequently found on these lists were: cleaning/organizing the attic, garage, etc. and painting, followed closely by repairs (wall cracks, drywall, furniture dings) and landscaping jobs.

It appears experience dictates what is on the list. About 71 percent were likely to have between one and nine tasks on their list. While women ages 25-35 were more likely to weigh down their lists with 10-15 tasks, wives ages 56-67 apparently knew better and were more prone to have less than five tasks for their honeys to do. Said one woman, "After a few weeks of waiting for him to get around to fixing chairs he sits me down one day and the chair collapses underneath him. The next day, he finished the furniture repair."

But husbands can also ignore those lists at their own peril. "After years of it I couldn't take his laziness or indifference. He now lives in Texas and I live in Kansas!" So just how do you get a husband from the "doesn't" column to the "do" column? Respondents indicated that reducing the number of tasks or "requesting" the completion of one task at a time helped move projects along. But when even that doesn't work, 44 percent of wives said they would typically end up doing the job themselves, especially women under age 56. Some 20 percent would succumb and let the task remain undone indefinitely, while 36 percent would eventually call in a professional. However, the study found that could take years.

If you want to avoid that expense, McAlister says you can often do the repair yourself with a lot less hassle than you think. That goes for husbands and wives. "This study showed us that Mighty Putty can quickly and easily address a huge variety of the most common home improvement tasks," McAlister says. "Whether that helps husbands look good by quickly handling their wives' requests or lets women save themselves disappointment by quickly and easily addressing tasks themselves, it may help you keep your house in order in many ways."