How to Take the Stress Out of Laundry

Kendra Adachi (0:01)

Welcome to The Lazy Genius Podcast, where we all get to be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Every Monday, you'll learn to compassionately manage your time, wisely solve problems, and kindly live in your season. I'm your host, Kendra Adachi, and I'm so glad you're here. Today is episode 490, how to take the stress out of laundry. Laundry is universal. Everyone wears clothes generally and generally every day. Those clothes get dirty, they must be washed, sometimes every day. It's just a constant part of life that will not stop until you die. And things that will not stop until we die, things that don't seem to have a break in them, they feel extra stressful. Like you can't really take a vacation from laundry, not without mountains of laundry waiting at the end. So the constancy of laundry and the lack of having a break from it, it really can wear a person down. So since we can't stop doing laundry, let's figure out how to take the stress out of it. Let's make it as simple and pleasant and compassionate and functional as possible. So that we'll still be able to do it without losing our minds. Now, before we get into the meat of the episode, I'm just gonna kick things off real quick with my ride or die laundry tip that will forever be my favorite, like always. And that is to wash your clothes based on where they get put away. You think you're being efficient by washing your clothes like with your daughter's clothes, like combining two hampers, but then you have to spend 10 minutes sorting them at the end. Or you do what I did for years where I combined my son's clothes in one hamper and one laundry load, and then I had to sort through like tiny underwear and less tiny underwear each time, but they were so close, so I couldn't really tell. And I was checking the tag of every single pair of underwear. Are you kidding me? It's maddening. So keep dirty clothes separate from each other, like from different people's clothes, and wash small loads of clothes that all end up in the same place. Like, what a gift. If that is possible for you, what a gift to empty the dryer. And that whole laundry basket, those are all clothes that only belong in one room or in one set of drawers. Like, there's nothing better. There's nothing better than that. Okay, so now the favorite tip is out of the way. Let's get to the heart of this. Before I tell you what we're going to do today, I want to tell you what we're not going to do. What we're not going to do is build a big laundry system. I know that's what you want for all kinds of chores, for dishes and dusting and bathrooms and floors. I think that rhymed. That sounded like Dr. Seuss.

We all want a cohesive system where all the pieces move in tandem to keep our house tidy and clean at all times. And chances are good, you have probably tried to build a few of those systems over the years. You know, you've made plans and chore charts to this effect. You have read cleaning blogs and books. You downloaded PDFs that help you do all the chores you want to do. Laundry included in a way that gets it all done. But here's something I want you to keep with you forever. When it comes to household chores, systems are not built. They grow.

Now you might be like, of course, they're built, Kendra. Of course, they're built. How else do you create a system? Mine just hasn't worked yet. And I would do that in your general direction and give you my best big sister look to demonstrate that you are not helping your argument at all because it hasn't worked yet. The reason your household systems for laundry and clutter and whatever else don't work right away or for very long is because you're trying to build a system from scratch. You're saying, I'm going to do all of these things on Thursday, and then I'm going to do this part on Friday, and then everyone will help do this part on Saturday. And then by that weekend, definitely the next one, none of it is even close to working and you're frustrated and you start again. That's because systems are not built. They grow. They grow.

And in order to make the system of laundry easier and take the stress out of it, you have to go in the right order as lazy geniuses do, and you got to let the thing grow. You got to let it grow. You got to start small with things that matter, practice them over and over again, believe in the power of those small steps, and eventually you will find a groove with laundry that feels like a system, because it is, but it's less stressful and definitely less annoying because you have grown it over time rather than try to build it real quick. So that's what we're going to do today. I'm not going to give you a big laundry system to copy. I'm going to give you the order to follow to grow your own. And if you're already in a groove with laundry, you could listen anyway so that you could use the same order for another annoying chore in the house. All right? Okay, let's get into it. So the first step, and there's just three, there's just three. The first step in taking the stress out of laundry is to befriend it.