Why I Stopped Bursting Through The Laundry
If you've known me for a while, you know that I have a considerable soft spot for laundry lines. I am especially fond of hanging laundry outside, on high strings, with a bit of a breeze around.
However, due to some incidents with my forgetting the wet laundry in the machine, I have made some changes to this activity to avoid more damp smelling encounters.
There are two ways I used to do the laundry before.
1. As a therapeutic measure. This involves hanging the laundry to calm me and relax. Sometimes it also includes long-ish semi-meditative laundry folding sessions while watching a show on Netflix or listening to some form of audio edutainment.
2. As a measure against piling heaps of laundry in the house. This happens when I haven't needed therapeutic domestic chores and feel fed up with things piling up. This also involves a burst of laundry and cleanup.
The problem with both of these approaches is that I put the laundry on wash but often, two hours later, when the washer has finished, am in a completely different situation. Invariably, I am either too busy to hang the laundry, not "in the mood", otherwise occupied or too "stuck on the sofa because after all, I have just sat down after a burst of cleaning".
I tend to do things in bursts of energy rather than measured, regular steps. The problem is that after a burst, there is a slouch in which I am pretty useless.
For many activities, this is entirely unproblematic. Also, since I know that this is how I work best, I try to set up most of my life in a way that lets me take advantage of this rhythm.
In my day job as an accountant, for example, there is always a burst of busyness at the beginning of the month. After that, there is a quiet period followed by another burst around day 20.
The laundry is a different matter, though.
The main problem is that after I've bursted myself out, I forget that there is still wet laundry in the machine and then have to overcome a lot of nasty resistance to get back to it. Also, I know it won't smell fresh anymore (half the pleasure) and feeling guilty about the wet, smelly laundry only makes it worse.
So I am pacing myself with the laundry.
Instead of trying to get as much done as I can hang on the rack in one day, I only do one load of laundry a day—just the one. Every day. Until there is no more laundry.
I start by taking down the dry clothes in the morning and starting the wash. Happily, the time when the washing machine is finishing up - the spin cycle sounds like an attempt to launch into space - coincides with the time where I like a small coffee break.
So I get up for a coffee and then hang the laundry.
After that, I resist the urge to start another wash. I do fill the machine and put in all the things, but I don't press the button.
Then I feel very accomplished and don't think about the laundry until the next morning.
If I need a domestic therapy session, I stick to activities that can be interrupted t any time without damp-smelling consequences.
Picking up around the house and wiping down kitchen counters are among my current favourites.
All this is to say: Sometimes you need to pace yourself. Especially when you enjoy an activity, leave some for tomorrow. Your future self will thank you because it won’t have to deal with the wet-smelling consequences of the slouch after your burst.
