Neurodiversity Laundry Cycles

Neurodiversity and....Laundry

If I ran the world, laundry machines would be located on the floor of the house where you generate the most laundry. This whole carrying laundry up and down flights of stairs is just inefficient.

Laundry is the bane of my existence.

(BUT I LOVE FOLDING LAUNDRY!)

I struggle with laundry. I'm not the only one who struggles with laundry.

Here's some strategies I've used before to tackle laundry:

The monthly laundromat bender:

*note this requires purchasing enough underwear, socks, and clothes to go 6 weeks.

Before I was married, I didn't even own a washer or dryer.

I went to the laundromat once a month, loaded up an audiobook, plugged in my headphones and went to town.

I had it down to a science. I knew how to spread my laundry out in multiple washers and dryers so in about 4 hours total including...putting my clothes away at home (gasp), I was DONE with laundry for a MONTH.

I loved this system.

I literally never stopped moving...by the time the third washer was done, my first load was done drying. I'd grab a folding table and fold clothes and put them in piles so it was easy to put away when I got home. Bam. I was a MACHINE.

I'd walk in the house, put it all away. DONE.

It was AMAZING.

I never had laundry that needed folded or put away.
I got it all done at once.

I only thought about it once a month.

The system was 'complete' based on neurotypical standards.

Outsource It

I've also outsourced my laundry. Yup, you can outsource that. I was outsourcing my laundry before I even got a neurodiverse diagnosis.

Here's some ways I've outsourced my laundry, listed from most cost-effective to least cost-effective:

I would drop it off at a local laundromat that had a wash/fold service and pay for it by the pound. I'd drop it off on the way to work and pick it up on the way home. Bonuses here: Forced me to leave work on time to go get it before they closed, and they fold like the PROS.
My cleaning human would take it with her and do it. She would take 1-2 baskets every time she'd clean (every 2 weeks) and bring them back. It was a cycle so I'd always have two baskets of dirty laundry out being taken care of in between cleaning. A bonus here: again, folded like a PRO.
Check local! We have a local woman owned business who does a pickup/dropoff service.
Our local 'chain' dry cleaners has a pickup/dropoff service and we sometimes use them on really busy weeks. They even provided these amazing heavy-duty canvas bags that we use for other things ALL THE TIME.

Adding additional humans into the mix:

My dad gave me the most profound pre-marital advice: Anything that is difficult pre-marriage is EXPONENTIALLY more difficult post-marriage. And it turns out that extends to laundry.

So I'm married now, and we own a washer and dryer. Yayyyy adulting. I liked my other methods better. They were easier to maintain. See above paragraph, refer to exponentially more difficult once married.

I also want to point out my step daughters are adults, so we have exponentially less laundry than a family of 4. However, we also own a food service business, so there's a lot of laundry from the kitchen itself that we still bring home and do to save on costs.

My husband is a chef and uses bathroom towels like they're commercial kitchen towels. Sometimes he showers and changes outfits up to 3 times a day. You can see where I'm going here. Meanwhile, I wear pants well beyond their wash date because they feel comfortable and they're worn in and soft. We have very different laundry requirements.

Early in our marriage, my husband thought he was helping me with the laundry by taking it out of the dryer and letting it pile up in a 'to be folded' pile. Instead, I had to solve a whole new problem: How to tackle a huge shit pile of wrinkly overwhelm.
NO BUENO.

Looking back, I hated the early stages of our marriage....because they broke every system I had ever created for my neurodiverse brain to function. Laundry is just one example!

A side quest About "Care Cycles"

I am a huge "I watch Tik--Tok to learn' person. There is a great content creator, KC Davis, who runs a website called Struggle Care.

She says it better than me:

We tend to think of care tasks are existing only in the two static states of "done" and "undone," assigning a morally good value to the state of doneness. In reality, there are several states to a care task, each one as morally neutral as the next. When we stop chasing the "done" state as morally superior to the other states, we become more comfortable with the normal cycles of care tasks and learn how to make each one function best for us.-KC Davis

Source: Instagram post

Watch her TikTok Video on it, here:

So, I've applied this strategy to Laundry

Laundry lives in the following cycles:

Clean and put away
On your body
Waiting to be washed
In the washer/dryer
Clean and ready to be put away

Changing my mindset on "What does Done look like" from done/undone to "turning the cog on a cycle" has shifted how I take care of 'boring care tasks' that are necessary to exist in the world but I would outsource if money wasn't an issue.

A cycle that works for us:

We've been together a lot longer now, and we've worked thru several attempts at systems that just didn't cut it.

Here's what we've come up with that works for our family.

I'm more productive with what I like to dub "annoying care tasks" (read: chores) BEFORE I go to work in the morning. I also have a deadline to get out of the house, so I'll just tackle it so it's not looming over me all day, causing anxiety.

I like listening to an audiobook or podcast in the quiet of the morning. I'm amazingly efficient when I can perform a system without interruption, especially to the point where it becomes habitual and I am on auto-pilot; saving that brain juice for my work.

Here's the cycle that works best in my morning routine. It takes me about 10 minutes, but because of ADHD I allocate 15. This way, when I finish before 15, I'm ahead of the game! And it gives me a built in buffer for the extra 5 minutes I accidentally spent scrolling on tiktok.

Our Best Cycle

Get dry clothes out of the dryer
Move wet clothes to the dryer
Put new clothes in the washer and run it
Utilize a folding station to fold/hang basket items from dryer and put away

My Current Folding Station. It's not pretty, but it does the job.
More details on my folding station later in this post.

But I don't have a big load of laundry if I do laundry daily:

Who cares.

My laundry doesn't pile up into a wrinkly pile of overwhelm. I actually am able to complete the cycle of laundry (almost) daily, and if I miss a day, there's not much piled up and its an easy fix.

Smaller loads are easier to handle and take care of.
Laundry machines have the ability to adjust their water levels; either manually or automatic
Clothes dry faster in smaller loads.

Additional System Tricks I use:

I utilize a folding station to make life a bit easier. (more on that later)
Stack folded items into piles that make sense based on where things belong:

My t-shirts in a pile, my tank tops in another pile, leggings folded in another pile, etc.
Why: when I go to put away the laundry is already in the basket in 'groups' of where it belongs, and folded to fit based on where it needs to 'live'. Less trips between items to put away.

Leave the hangers in the closet.

I lay hanging clothes over the closet rod bar (to the right in the picture) so they don't wrinkle.
Why I don't bring hangers to the folding station:

I honestly don't bring hangers to the folding station. This whole 'gather your hangers, take them down 3 flights of stairs and then back up" is stupid.
I also tend to leave my hangers on the closet exactly where I took clothes from. I learned a while ago this is part of my working memory struggles. If I leave hangers where I took clothes from:

it's easier for me to put things back in their 'home'
it's easier for me to find things later because everything is where it belongs
I notice when an item is missing for a while.
It forces me to evaluate items of clothing when adding new clothes

Fold the big stuff first.

If it's not a large item that needs hung or folded, I tackle it later.
But, I do pre-sort the small stuff as I pick it up:

I use small bins on the rolling cart to separate out underwear and socks. I just drop them in.
Socks go in the bottom right, underwear bottom left.

Don't fold your freaking underwear.

Don't waste your beautiful brain power folding underwear..... You won't get to heaven by folding your underwear. It's not a virtue.
No one sees it in the drawer.
...besides unwrinkles with your body heat. #Efficient

Match your socks last

That bin of socks? Tackle those last.
Pro Tip: leave non-matching socks in the sock sorter bin. Usually the stray will show up the next load or two.

Organize your closets and drawers based on what works for your brain to make putting clothes away AND finding them easy.

My future self intends to write a blog post on this later, and link it here*.
*If I remember, #becauseADHD.

Folding Station Set Up

Ikea Linnmon Tabletop (you can get different lengths based on your needs)
Ikea OLOV Legs :These legs are ADJUSTABLE so I have mine set up at countertop height
Rolling Cart: They don't make mine anymore but this cart I linked is also collapsible, in case you're short on space
Cube Bins: I love these because they contain areas to put labels
Rolling Clothes Rack: This one has an adjustable height, so if I need to use it for something else, I can. I keep it low, so I can just lay hanging clothes over the rod
Three Laundry Baskets (these are not what we keep dirty laundry in, these are the baskets we use to transport laundry while its being washed/dry/folded). I like the ones with the curve because they fit great against your body.
T-Shirt Folder: Sheldon on Big Bang theory isn't wrong; this is a gem!
Clothes Steamer: We don't own an iron in this household. Steaming is where it's at!
Three laundry baskets. Yeah, they're labeled 1/3, 2/3, 3/3. It's important, so no one takes them and uses them for something else and breaks the system.

My Rolling Cart!
When I am in 'active folding' mode, I set the laundry basket with clean clothes on the top of the cart

Why I use separate Laundry Baskets and Hampers

We use the plastic laundry baskets when laundry is in the 'active laundry' phase, meaning: Wash-Dry-Fold. These baskets live on top of the folding station.
We use laundry HAMPERS in various areas of our home to collect laundry.

This seems dumb to most people, but here's why:

The baskets and hampers always stay where they live
The system doesn't break because someone didn't put the hamper back
We put 'laundry collection areas' in places that hampers may not traditionally live, but laundry collects.

small baskets
mesh bags
hampers

Hampers take up vertical space but less floor space. Laundry baskets take up a lot of floor space
Hampers come in various shapes and sizes. My favorites are:

Ikea SKUBB laundry bag (for narrow and long spaces)
Square Pop-Up Mesh Hampers
Divider ones!

Other Tips

Laundry Day

I've seen some households execute a single day/week they do laundry. I do this, sometimes. When I do, I keep the piles out until all the laundry is done
Pro Tip: Set a timer so you don't forget to change the laundry out.

We pre-sort laundry by person and 'object performance'.

We keep our dirty laundry in separate laundry hampers by person, so then the load is just one person's laundry (much easier to put away this way)
Towels get their own hamper, so they can be done in their own load
In the winter, I keep my hoodies and sweatpants in a separate bin because they take up a lot of space in the washer. I usually wash them as their own load
We use mesh bags in specific rooms: kitchen towels have a mesh bag that we throw dirty towels in. When I wash towels, I simply grab the bag from the kitchen, zip it closed, and throw it in the wash.

Socks

We've tried mesh zip bags for socks, but since there's just two of us, it wasn't necessary. I think kids socks could be sorted by kids when they take them off and put them in mesh bags.
I had a friend in college who safety pinned her socks together when she took them off, then she never needed to match/fold them

"But I don't have enough laundry to do laundry daily"

If you only have clothes for 3 or 4 days a week of daily laundry, plan your stopping point to be something that doesn't need folded right away: like bathroom towels.
Towels (or sheets) can live in the dryer until you start the cycle all over again. The next time you move wet to dry, you fold the towels.
Bonus: nothing left in a wet washer.

Pair changing the laundry out with something else you enjoy, or need to get done

I listen to an audiobook when i'm doing laundry
On a marathon laundry day, I often swap laundry, go to the bathroom, get a snack and refill my water bottle. I consider it a brain/movement break.

You know those "ziplock bags that you get on the outside of an item off amazon that are nice but you shouldn't keep but you can't throw away"?

Every couple months, I use one of those baggies and throw all the 'lonely socks' in the bin in them and date the bag.
If I pull a lonely sock out of the bag, I 're-date' the bag.
After 6 months to a year if the bag hasn't been opened, I get rid of the socks

Tips for designing your own system

The key is to create a functional system that works for the household and doesn't break down if the system gets stopped in the middle of a turn.

This means everyone that takes part:

has to agree on the minimum standard of care and understand why certain people need things done a certain way (check out https://www.fairplaylife.com/ for more on this)
how to turn the cog if it's not normally their care task, without breaking the system
how to 'pause' if the cog needs to stop mid-turn and you cannot complete the full cycle.

Generally, I handle the laundry because I like to fold it. Often, my husband will help me by changing the washer and dryer out while I'm at work. But remember that giant pile of wrinkly overwhelm?
Now, if he changes the laundry when I'm not home, he goes thru the basket and lays out the clothes over the rod in the folding station. That way, they're not wrinkled! It is a great solution and often helps me get the cog cycle tackled faster.

So how the heck do I figure out a system?

1. Start with where you get stuck.

This is simply a part of your Roadblock. This is the 'physical result' of the mental roadblock that keeps the cog from turning

Take a look at the list of things in the laundry cycle above.
Where does the laundry tend to pile up? (and yes, it CAN pile up in 'dirty').

2. Get down and dirty with the "Why". This step is CRITICAL.

This is your mental ROADBLOCK and keeps the cog from turning.
My honest opinion? Unless you know this part, your system will continually fail you.

It doesn't matter how 'dumb' you think the "Why" is.
Keep digging until you can figure out WHY the laundry cog stops turning at a certain place... it needs to be as simple as possible.

It could literally be

I hate going up and down the stairs carrying a lot of things in my arms
I hate sorting the kids socks, it drives me crazy
I hate touching other people's dirty clothes

No reason is dumb.

3. Alter your system and Test your theory:

Find one way to alter the cog so that this roadblock is either worked around, accommodated, or eliminated.
Test your theory for a pre-designated BETA period.

The secret sauce here is a minimum 6 cog turns. Then you get a true sense of is it working or not
During the beta period, you cannot make changes to the system, but you CAN jot down ideas you have for making it better!

4. Repeat the steps above as needed until it becomes smooth sailing 80% of the time.

80% of the time is pretty damn near perfect.

It's not at 80% if the 'paused cog' isn't turned back on easily.

If the cog turning is paused, how do I resume the system? It should be easy to see. Most likely you will have dirty laundry backed up at this point, not a mountain of clean laundry to fold. That's the goal.

My laundry system is working, if, 80% of the time:

the laundry isn't sitting in the washer getting moldy
clean laundry isn't in a mountain of wrinkly overwhelm

Remember our goal?

It was to

1. create a functional system that

2. works for the household

3. doesn't break down if the system gets stopped in the middle of a turn.

That's the secret sauce.

Onward, brains.

Create!

In Perpetual Pursuit

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