The Lazy Genius Podcast - #113 - The Lazy Genius Does Laundry Updated!

Episode Date: June 17, 2019

I know what you’re thinking…”Kendra, you’ve already done an episode on laundry!” That’s true. But things change, including how I tackle laundry. This episode and the one before is definitely not one size fits all. That said, I’m going to share the size that fits me, and hopefully, it’ll give you some ideas for your own laundry approach. But for real, if laundry doesn’t bug you, if you’re happy with your system, stick with it. Don’t fix what isn’t broken. All the Links If you’re new around here or just want a refresher, listen to The Lazy Genius Does Laundry episode from back in the day. Here’s a helpful blog post on how to survive the laundry monster that goes along with that old episode, too. Also, how to iron without an iron if you need one after leaving that load in the dryer overnight. Join me live on Instagram around 12:15 p.m. EST on Thursday to chat about my modified laundry routine. Download a transcript of this episode. This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi guys. You're listening to The Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 113. The Lazy Genius does laundry updated. I say updated because I've already done an episode, The Lazy Genius does laundry, a good while ago. I encourage you to listen to that if you haven't. Since this episode is sharing how I've shifted that initial approach a little bit, I will put a link in the show notes. or you can just scroll way down in your app to episode number 21. Today, though, I'm sharing some ways that I have adjusted that original laundry approach to be even better for me and my family, how you can do something like that as well.

An important thing to note as we get started is that we all do laundry differently. We have different amounts of clothes and chunks of time to take care of it. And besides that, we have different frustrations with laundry, which means we need different solutions. This episode and the one before is definitely not one size fits all. That said, I'm going to share the size that fits me and hopefully it'll give you some ideas for your own laundry approach. But for real, if laundry doesn't bug you, if you're happy with your system, then you need to stick with it. Don't fix what isn't broken, as they say. In that original laundry episode, I shared my love of Laundry Day. Laundry Day is essentially like all the

laundry done and a single day and not thought about again until the next laundry day. I love it for a number of reasons, which I lay out in that original episode. But my biggest frustration with laundry was the fact that it was always there. A load always needed switching over. It always needed washing again because I forgot it was there. Piles were always out. Stacks of clean clothes, never seemed to get put away. It just got on my nerves. Since my biggest frustration was the oppressive, constant nature of laundry. A laundry day was the perfect solution. I do all the laundry from start to finish and a single day, and I don't really do anything else that day. I don't try and squeeze in other chores. I try and keep dinner pretty simple. My main task,

other than feeding my family and getting my kids to and from school, is laundry. So it gets done, and then I don't think about it anymore. It's not oppressive after that. Now, laundry day has become such a natural part of our family's weekly rhythm that I can I can do more things during the day. I can leave for an errand. I can do other chores sometimes because now I'm in the rhythm of the start to finish. Right. Our whole family knows it's laundry day. So it's not a surprise to anyone when it's time to put away the clothes. We've all bought in. Now here's what I've changed though that I wanted to share with you. Despite the success of laundry day, there was one particular day a while ago when we just didn't really have any dirty clothes. We didn't have a lot, which was weird.

I don't remember why, but I pulled, we had fewer loads. So I pulled the last load from the dryer around noon. Everything was put away before Annie went down for her nap. And it was like my life had taken on a whole new meaning. It was amazing. And I wanted to feel that way again. So I decided I wanted to try to finish my laundry before nap time, if I could, so that I could have her nap time to just like sit or take a nap myself or read or whatever else could fill that hour instead of laundry because let's be honest I don't love doing laundry I love laundry day because it makes laundry more manageable but it's not like I love doing the task of laundry actually don't like it at all so I love the feeling of being done and I started thinking of ways to get done sooner so for this

past year our laundry day it has been on a Tuesday just because I work it used to be on Mondays at the time of that first episode it was Mondays but now I work on Mondays and so it's on Tuesdays I don't do laundry on work days you know you want to to do it when you're home if you can. But when I started thinking about how to start the laundry earlier so that it would be finished earlier, I started small. I honestly can't remember if I said this in that first episode or not, but I remember getting a jump on laundry day by sorting the night before, or at least gathering the clothes together the night before, then the morning of laundry day. So sorting in the morning, it was working fine. But then I realized how like even better it would be to our

have that part done so that when I got up in the morning, I could just load the first load, first thing in, and first thing when I woke up, and then it would get started. Now, that worked great for a while. I sorted it night and started my loads in the morning, but then I tried another small step after a while. After nighttime sorting, I would load the washer with the first load before I went to bed and then I would set a timer since my washer has a timer for the laundry to start like seven hours later. That way when I woke up, the first load was already washed and ready to switch over, which gave me a big head start, right? But then I thought maybe I can wash a full load at night, like one whole load, so that a load is dry when I wake up and another one has

been put on a timer and is ready to switch over right when I wake up. So I would, I try to sort everything right after I got Annie down for bed around like 7 o'clock so that there was time to wash and switch over a load to the dryer before I went to bed a couple of hours later. Want to go electric without sacrificing fun? That's the Volkswagen ID4. All electric and thoughtfully designed to elevate your modern lifestyle. The Volkswagen ID4 is fun to drive with instant an acceleration that makes city streets feel like open roads, plus a refined interior, with innovative technology always at your fingertips. The all-electric ID4, you deserve more fun.

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You know, who cares. Now, I have built those small steps to a laundry day that's still the same number of hours, but it's actually stretched over two days. So here's, here's the rhythm. Here's how it works. Here's the rhythm. Here's the rhyme. It's actually feel the rhythm, fill the rhyme, isn't it? It's not here's the rhythm. But it's fine. We can still, we can still do a beat. All right. So on Monday afternoon, after homework, part of the boys' chores are to help me gather all the laundries of sort. So they bring it in from their rooms and get all the stray socks from inside their shoes and all the things. I always make sure that Monday night's dinner is easy. We often have pasta Mondays, spaghetti meatballs or something super simple or changing life chicken,

since those are easy. And then maybe I even sometimes have like dinner already done. Basically, I don't want to have to worry about two big tasks, dinner and the beginning of laundry day at the same time, right? I don't want to feel rushed around that time of day because it's already hard. The four o'clock on is already hard. So while the kids play or have screen time, I sort the laundry, usually around four. And I start the first load. I can usually get through two or three loads without rushing. I don't typically fold them. I leave them separate in their own baskets and their own piles because they're sorted according

to where they go and I don't want to lose that, right? And so sometimes I might have time to fold or load or two. That's great. But then on Tuesday morning, I only have just one or two loads left to wash, but I can fold everything that I washed the day before in like a giant stretch. if nothing got folded the night before. And then I'm done with everything before lunch. It's also great to have that as part of the rhythm

because some of that laundry process is happening when causes home at night so we can do it together. And then here's my favorite part. The final load that I wash and dry is always the boys' clothes because their Tuesday chore is to fold and put away that load of laundry. I don't even touch it. I know a lot of you have your kids do their laundry like on their own from start to finish. And obviously I hope that is eventually the case since they

need to know how to do their laundry on their own, like as humans. But for right now, this is working really great. And for the record, I actually started really small with them too. At first, their only task was to put away their laundry. Like that was it. I folded it, did everything, but they were in charge of putting it away. And then I'd have them like help me sort and pair up their socks or something smaller. Like we'd separate socks and underwear because like, who's is this? Who's captain underpants underwear is this? Now they sort and fold to put it away. But we didn't start that way. That would have been too much. Once their clothes get moved to the dryer, I'm hands off, which is just so amazing. So to recap, we gather all the laundry together on Monday afternoon.

I sort all at once so that I can wash according to where clothes end up, not based on the color or the type of clothing. A refresher for that is in that first laundry episode. And I start washing. I make sure that whatever load I washed last that night can sit in the dryer overnight and it doesn't matter. It gets wrinkly. And then I finish the laundry the next morning, leaving the final load for my boys to do since it's very close. They oddly have grown to like folding laundry. It's really cute. I think they like feeling grown up or something.

It takes them like an hour because they're really slow, but who cares? They're doing it and I'm not. Okay. Now you don't have to adopt this particular laundry strategy. but the point is to identify what about laundry or any chore for that matter drives you crazy. Once you know that, try and tailor a solution to meet that specific frustration. Otherwise, you're just like aimlessly trying to make something easier, like vaguely without naming it. You need to know specifically what frustrates you in order to make it easier.

If the sorting is a pain, that's the part you really, really don't like. buy one of those hamper's divided, you know, so that you can sort as you have dirty clothes. So it's done for you. If folding is a pain, consider what types of items you don't actually need to fold anymore. Like Annie's clothes aren't folded. They're just like laid on top of each other and put in her drawer because they're small enough to do that. I used to fold our cloth napkins, but then I realized like it doesn't matter if they're wrinkled. So now I just like make a pile of them and stick them in the napkin basket and call it a day. Of course there are a lot of things. that we fold, but some we don't because it doesn't actually matter if it's folded or not.

So name what your specific frustration is and see if you can start small in facing that specific frustration only. And then once you make that one thing easier, it could be that like the entire process is going to feel way easier than a giant overhauled system would. Start small. Know what actually matters to you. Know what frustrates you. And then be specific. and how you approach that frustration. Trying to just be better at laundry or I want laundry to be easier. It won't work super well if you don't know what will actually lead to a result that makes sense for you. So be specific. All right. That's it. This is a really quick episode. I hope that this perspective, it helps you find kind of how to address your own laundry woes, maybe some other chore woes as

well. But I'm really glad you were here today. Thank you so much for listening. I will be live on Instagram this Thursday around 1215 Eastern. So you can follow me at the lazy genius to ask me your questions. If the time changes by like 15 minutes or so, which it has been so far this summer here and there, I always post in the Instagram feed what time I'll be there. So you know what to expect if it's a little off of 1215. All right, guys, thanks so much for listening. Until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra, and I'll see you next week. You ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life?

It's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life, because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me,

but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to becoming you wherever you get your podcasts.