gentle skill building: laundry
it’s not failure. it’s laundry
My Postpartum Laundry Routine
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Put a laundry basket in every room in the house
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Put laundry into washer
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Come back in eight hours when it smells like mildew because I forgot about it
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Wash again
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Put laundry into dryer
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Come back in twenty-four hours when it’s all wrinkled
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Unload clothes from dryer onto laundry room floor
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Leave it there for seven to ten business days
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Look at myself in the mirror and remind myself being bad at laundry is not a moral failing and I’m doing just fine.
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I did not fold even one article of clothing until my baby was seven months old. For seven months my entire family lived out of a giant
pile of clean clothes that spanned the entire surface of my laundry room floor. I could occasionally get it into the washer and transferred to the dryer in between toddler tantrums and baby screams, but I just could never get any further. One day, as if by magic, I ended up with a little time to go fold some laundry. If I had spent those seven months telling myself I was a piece of shit every time I looked at that laundry pile, I probably would not have had the motivation to do it despite having the time. That is because if a laundry pile represents failure and I’m already struggling with a newborn and a pandemic and an
energetic toddler, my brain, which is trying desperately to avoid pain and seek pleasure (or at least relief from pain), is never going to give me the green light to lean in to yet another painful experience like
spending thirty minutes in my failure pile of laundry. But it’s not
failure. It’s laundry. Keeping it morally neutral actually helped me get it done.
hacking my laundry: out of moral neutrality comes permission
This self-compassionate approach carried me through several months of living in survival mode. It also laid the foundation for the
life-changing revelation about function I had one day while engaging in a rare moment of folding clothes. I looked down at the baby onesie I was folding and asked myself a shocking question.
“Why am I folding baby onesies?”
I had no answer. They didn’t really wrinkle and even if they did it’s not like anyone cares if a baby is wearing a wrinkled onesie. I’d
probably change it four times before lunch anyways.
“These… don’t… need to be folded.”
I said it out loud, bracing myself for… the laundry police? I’m not sure. There were rules to laundry, but for the first time I stopped
asking myself how laundry should be done and started questioning in what way laundry could be functional for me.
I looked around the piles I was sitting in. Fleece pajamas, sweat pants, underwear, gym shorts.
“Almost none of this… almost none of this needs to be folded.”
I whispered it to myself, as if the laundry gods would smite me at that very moment.
I went through the pile, picking out the few items that truly needed to remain wrinkle-free for work or just out of preference. It took me
one minute to hang these. The rest I put away unfolded in under three.
Oh my god. What other rules am I following that don’t make sense?
rethinking laundry rules
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Laundry baskets go in bedrooms Laundry baskets go
everywhere. They go in every room even and especially in the kitchen and living room.
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Wash clothes when the bins are full Wash only on Mondays and wash everything on Monday. Eventually this day will become synonymous with laundry and it will be easier to remember.
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Sort darks and whites Load everything together. Do not sort. Wash on cold.
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Transfer from washer to dryer quickly Set a timer once the washer starts. Set timer again once dryer starts.
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Fold clothes Create multiple bins/baskets for clothes and toss them in unfolded. Hang a few shirts.
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Put away in everyone’s different closets in their room All clothes are stored in one room, which is the en suite closet off the
laundry area. It makes no sense to take clothes to three
different closets when I am the person dressing all three of
those people. Sit on butt and put away every family member’s laundry in under eight minutes without moving.
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making laundry serve you
Laundry does not have to be done the way you have always been
taught to do it. Here are some other questions you can ask yourself to find what works for you.
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What preconceived ideas do you have about laundry? When we get rid of thinking there is a morally right or valid adult way of doing laundry, we see the possibilities of making laundry functional for ourselves.
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Does all laundry really need to be folded? Undies, baby clothes, athletic shorts, and pajamas usually do just fine being bunched up in a drawer or a clean laundry basket. Perhaps it’s a more
manageable task to pick out the few things you would like to be wrinkle-free and hang them up, leaving the rest to sit happily in a basket or drawer where you can access them.
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Does laundry have to be put away? Who says? If folding it and leaving it in the laundry room or a clean basket works for you, there is no reason to go through the extra steps of putting it in drawers.
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Does laundry have to be done in huge loads, or am I better served by washing a small load every day of the essentials?
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Does sorting my laundry before I wash and dry it make it more likely to get done or a more enjoyable task for me?
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Would you like to have fewer clothes so there is less to wash? Would you like to start buying wrinkle-free fabrics so you don’t have to worry about leaving clothes in the dryer?
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If you can afford it, would you like to just outsource this task completely and move on with your awesome life? Consider hiring someone to come weekly or bi-weekly and do laundry. Consider if you would rather take everything to the wash and fold service at the laundromat.
when you need a laundry reset
You can read about all the creative laundry systems in the world and it won’t be helpful if you feel so paralyzed by your current mountains of laundry that you feel you can never get to a place where you can even implement a new system. It’s always valid to send everything
out to a wash and fold and just get it over with. If that’s in the budget and that blank slate would be helpful to you, let it rip.
People talk a lot about the benefit of downsizing your wardrobe, but since that in and of itself is a huge undertaking, it’s not really a
great starting point when you feel like you’re drowning. However, we can fake a closet downsize and still get all of the benefits without having to deal with the intense decision-making process real downsizing requires. Pick out a week’s worth of clothing to launder and pack everything else away in bags or Rubbermaid bins until a
time when you can deal with it. Pick a day to launder your clothes, and if you feel up to it add back in a few items at a time. It may feel better to have more space without the clothes everywhere and be more manageable to keep up with your new smaller wardrobe.
not quite dirty but not quite clean
People always ask me what to do with those clothes that are not quite dirty enough to go into the dirty clothes hamper, but because
you’ve worn them they’re a little dirty and you might wear them again.
In my experience, clothes like this often end up on a chair
somewhere. I like to start by saying that if the clothes chair is working for you there is no reason to change that. We’re just talking about
what functions and if you have a space to house those “not quite
dirty, not quite clean” clothes—be it a chair or a basket—and it doesn’t bother you, then there’s really no problem.
If I have a shirt that I wore that day and it’s not quite dirty enough to go into the dirty clothes hamper, I just… put it back with the clean clothes. It’s fine. It’s amazing, actually. Clothes in my house existing in either a laundry basket or in the closet simplifies my life.
Remember, at the end of the day it’s really not that important
whether you figure out a way to “stay on top of your laundry.” What’s important is learning to treat yourself with compassion and have a kind inner dialogue about laundry. If you never figure it out but have less shame in your life and more joy, I’d say that’s a win.
