I was watching an episode of Oprah the other day titled Are You Normal.  One of the guests cleaned her house in the nude and I could easily write a long post on why that is not appealing to me on so many levels but, one of her reasons why she cleaned nekkid was because she didn’t want to finish the cleaning and the laundry and then change out of her cleaning clothes and have one dirty outfit messing up her empty laundry baskets.  What?  It took me a minute to follow that logic and then I got it.  Her laundry goal.  It’s all wrong.

Her goal for laundry was to have it all finished.  An empty hamper.  No dirty clothes.

She’s a laundry perfectionist.

No wonder she cleans naked.  I hope she doesn’t take that logic to it’s fruition and figure out how to never have dirty laundry again…

My goal for my laundry is to have it under control so that we have clean clothes to wear.  I’ve accepted the fact that I will NEVER have everything clean at one time.  But, now I control my laundry, not the other way around.  Two of my boys wear uniforms to school and my husband has a dirty job.  We have massive dirty clothes.  But, I’m ok with always having a couple half loads waiting for their dirty peers to arrive so I can wash ’em up.  I do laundry almost every day. But it’s not a big part of my life. I rarely even think about it.  I’ve just accepted the fact that the best way for me to not dread attacking Mt. Washmore is to do a little bit every day.

{bonus idea, if you know you will ALWAYS be doing laundry and ALWAYS have your laundry baskets out, why not invest in beautiful baskets that you enjoy looking at?}

I think the goal for laundry is similar to how I think about having a baby.  The goal is to have the baby.  I really don’t care how one choose to birth it–in a bath tub, with every drug available at your local hospital, on the moon, whatever.  Have the baby.  Same with laundry, the goal is clean clothes.  Find what works for you and stick with it.  Once a month, once a day, on the moon, or even, yes, in the nude.

At least her laundry is done.

Are you allowing a goal of perfection to hold you hostage in your mind when it comes to thinking about household chores?

Be sure to visit the other 31 dayers::Life With My 3 Boybarians, Reluctant Entertainer, The Inspired Room, Remodeling This Life, Chatting at the Sky, Balancing Beauty and Bedlam, My First Kitchen,  over the next 31 days. Want to read all the Less Messy Nests posts? Click here.