Not everything needs to be folded

It's OK to make life easier

In KC Davis’s wonderful book, How to Keep House While Drowning, she recounts living with huge piles of laundry after she became a stay-at-home mom of two young kids. She could never get the laundry folded before something else called her away. And, of course, after both babies were in bed she was so tired that folding laundry was really the last thing she wanted to do.

Then, one day, as she was folding a baby onesie, she asked herself a question: why was she folding that onesie? It wasn’t really going to get wrinkled, and if it did, who cared? So she just started putting away onesies, and T-shirts, and athletic clothes, and pajamas without folding them. Pulling out the handful of things that truly would get wrinkled, and hanging them up, took just a few minutes. The whole laundry process became swifter.

As someone who never folds athletic gear or pajamas or anything like that, I’m glad she had this realization. As Davis notes, a lot of people are walking around with stories about what it means to be a good home manager. Sometimes we assign moral weight to this. If you fold your kids’ clothes you are a good mother and if you just shove them in the drawer, you are a bad mother. We could substitute father here, of course — though we all know who is more affected by these narratives of domesticity.

Function not perfection

But chores are morally neutral. The question is whether things are functioning or not. And I can assure you that a house can function marvelously without children’s clothes being folded. Instead of folded clothes, you might have more time — time that you can spend relaxing or maybe even having more fun with your kids.

Not everything needs to be folded. This realization is true on its face, and it’s true in a metaphorical sense. If you enjoy something, great. But if you don’t, maybe it’s worth considering if you’re spending more time on something than you need to just because you’re telling yourself a story about what a good person does. A good person gets her inbox to zero every day. A good person cooks elaborate meals from scratch. A good person makes her bed every morning.

Why am I doing this?

But if chores are morally neutral, then this opens up possibilities. Being a good person has nothing to do with whether you make your bed. There are everyday saints who just buy that rotisserie chicken and bagged salad and call it a day. There are good people who realize that not every email was asked for and who rationally decide that it would be better for them to spend time inquiring into a colleague’s life than responding to every email.

When you find yourself spending a lot of time on something, consider why you are doing it. Maybe there is a good reason that truly gets at one of your values. Or maybe there isn’t. Consider whether you have things in your life that do not need to be done. Not everything needs to be folded, and sometimes not folding things makes a better life possible.

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Big Time, my newest book, is now available wherever books are sold! If you enjoy my writing here at Vanderhacks, you’ll enjoy this book about what happens when we move beyond a sense of time scarcity and truly embrace time abundance. You can pick up a copy at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, Books-a-Million, Hudson, your local independent bookstore, or at your library. I appreciate the support.