child's personality + situation = changing strategies

Saturday is our day to clean and find our house again. It actually stays clean until about Sunday night. Last Saturday Jon wasn't home and I was in charge of getting the kids pepped up to clean. For some reason there's a lot more fighting when I'm in charge. I decided I would stay calm and every time a fight broke out I would calmly just add another chore to their list. Genius! It worked for a little while but then I heard a huge yell from downstairs. I went into the boys room and one brother (no names) decided the other brother wasn't helping enough so he opened the bin of summer clothes I had just switched out of their drawers and dumped it all over the room. I lost it. After yelling for a good five minutes, I stayed down in the room with them telling them exactly what to do and helping them until it was done. Complaining to my husband about it later he said, "You should have tried the strategy where they have a certain amount of time to finish then you check their work, that almost always works for me." It's hard because each child has a very different personality and what may work for him may not work for his sister or brother. One of my children will cry if I look at him/her funny where another one has to have a big blow out to get him/her motivated. I just wish there was a formula that said, "In this situation and with this child do this and you will get the result you want and the child wants and everyone will be happy." I guess that's part of parenting, I'll just keep trying the best I can and hope it all turns out for the best!