8. Cut Your Laundering Chore in Half

In his excellent book Timelock, Ralph Keyes points out that there are many supposedly time-saving devices that, because of the way we use them, don’t save us as much time as we think they do. The automatic washer and dryer are perfect examples.

Studies have been conducted over the past fifty years comparing the time our grandmothers and mothers spent on certain chores with the time we spend on them today. It’s interesting to see that even though our washers and dryers greatly reduce the amount of time it takes to clean and dry a load of clothes, we’re spending just as much time on the clothes washing chore as our grandmothers did, and in some cases more. Why? Because we’re doing more loads.

In the old days, for example, Grandpa would put on a clean shirt on Monday and, after wearing it carefully through the end of the week, it would go into the clothes hamper for Grandma to take care of on wash day. Now we think nothing of wearing two or three shirts a day, one for exercise, one for work, one for casual wear, and throwing them into the laundry basket the minute we take them off.

The same is true of towels and linens. Today, without batting an eye, we use a towel or maybe two or three per person per day. After all, it’s so easy: just run another load through the machine, right?

It’s one thing if you have household help to do the laundry, though there is still the water, the detergent, the gas, the electricity, and the expense to think about, not to mention having to supervise the help; but it’s another matter entirely if you’re the one doing the laundry, and you’re spending far more time each week in the laundry room than you want or need to.

If that’s the case, sit down and rethink your use of clothes and other launderable items. An easily attainable goal would be to cut back your laundry to the equivalent of one load per person per week. After you’ve done that for a while, it’ll be easy to cut back again, to one load every two weeks, especially once you’ve simplified your wardrobe (#22), and have mostly dark colors that don’t need to be laundered so often! Wear your clothes to the max and teach your kids to do the same. Assign one towel and one washcloth per person per week.

And who says we have to change the sheets every week? Our mothers did because it was the accepted way then. But, with so many mothers working outside the home, in addition to also working in the home, things are different now. I’m here to tell you it’s possible to go for two weeks (or more) without changing the sheets on your bed and live to tell about it. Just don’t tell my mother.