Sorting and Folding laundry
Do people not simply toss the clothes on a pile on top of a dresser? Am I the weird one?
That strategy worked well when it was just me and the ~10 articles of clothing I own. But now that I’m in a household of six that approach doesn’t work anymore.
My bachelor strategy was clothes in three categories:
- Clean (in the dryer)
- Dirty (bathroom or laundy room)
- Usable (Bedroom and livingroom)
That takes more effort than taking them out of the dryer, so yes.
I prefer to put away my clothes, but my wife prefers piles.
She can’t stand to spend twenty minutes folding the laundry, so she spends ten minutes every day digging through piles trying to find things. The math doesn’t really check out, but then again laundry is brutal for a lot of people so I get it
Personally, if I leave things in piles I go bonkers and it makes getting dressed every day a big chore. So you do you, but I guess it’s a matter of preference
Sounds like adhd. Setting 20 minutes aside for the purpose of folding is a monumental task. 10 minutes of panic searching when time is of the essence? Now that’s something I could hard focus on.
Yeah, she was diagnosed a few years ago and suddenly a lot of things made sense.
I’ve tried to help her by putting her laundry away, but that doesn’t really work either. Her organization scheme is chaos to an outside observer, and if something goes in the wrong spot it’s like it’s gone forever. Easily leads to a meltdown when she’s trying to get ready for work and can’t find the specific thing she was looking for.
I don’t really know what to do about that. Can’t win either way, so I guess she just has to pay the neurodivergence tax on her time
Yup. Noise canceling headphones and audio books has helped me if a task doesn’t really require “braining”. If it does require “braining” I’ll find a noise youtube video. My preference is brown noise or any super deep low frequency noise.
You can’t do anything, she has to choose to make changes.
As someone struggling with this for decades, I see what she’s doing. BTDT.
For me it’s always been if something gets moved it may as well not exist. She is struggling to do the work necessary to produce an organized result, because (in the moment) folding laundry is more overwhelming.
There’s a book I highly recommend called ADHD and Adults (I forget the author), that’s really insightful about how ADHD manifests differently I adults than children. While looking for that book I found this page and the one titled Dirty Laundry gave me a chuckle given this post.
Also check out How to ADHD on YouTube. For anyone who’s just starting to understand ADHD, she does a good job helping people see it from a better perspective.
As a partner of someone with ADHD who’s developed coping strategies, helping her is a tall order. She has to want to work on something, it has to promise big rewards for small change, and she has to really want to do it. That’s a lot for someone with ADHD.
Isn’t part of the definition of ‘rube Goldberg machine’ the machine does something simple and easy?
To rephrase the question: what’s something simple and easy that you’d prefer the task or cost of maintaining and running an overly complex machine than actually doing it?
Making Rube Goldberg devices.
Winner
Bureaucracy. Oh wait…
Turning on/off a light switch that’s a few meters away.
That’s why I got smart switches (that can only talk to Home Assistant).
Well, the real reason is ADHD, but forgetting to turn off lights is an issue.
Mental health/therapy.
Barring that, weeding my fields
Chopping coconuts.
Changing fitted sheets
Also folding them.
Cooking meth. (The explosion would be hilarious)
