Hijacking your thread to advocate for my lazy ideology. Disclaimer I have pretty severe ADHD so this might be extreme for most people but for me this makes life liveable.
Forget trying to make things look super tidy and neat like in an IKEA commercial. Make your living space functional, comfortable and easy to maintain. Reduce the amount of physical, mental and emotional effort required to maintain your environment. For example, for laundry:
- Don’t iron anything unless you really need/want to. (Job interview, going on a date, appearing in court, etc.)
- Anywhere you’re liable to undress, have a basket for dirty clothes. It should be open-topped (no lid!) and mobile, like a laundry basket, so when you need to do a load of laundry, you can pick up and use the whole basket - functioning both as the hamper and the basket. Bedroom and bathroom are the usual places for this! You want the act of tossing dirty clothes in the laundry to be just as easy as tossing it on the floor.
- There’s no such thing as odd socks. They’re called mix ‘n’ match socks now. Like Mashems!
- No neatly folded clothes or hangers or anything like that, except for very special things such as in point 1 - everything just gets dumped into big drawers based on category. I have little fabric boxes that fit into a kallax to keep this relatively neat looking but super easy.
- If something can’t survive going in the washing machine mixed load cycle and the tumble dryer daily load, it is not welcome in my life. (There’s a similar rule about the dishwasher!)
You get the idea. Embrace your laziness, don’t bother yourself with half a second what people might think of how you live. This is surprisingly neat and orderly and takes almost no effort to maintain. If you keep finding your basket is misplaced, buy another basket and keep it in two places. Stop fighting the current and go with your flow. Accept who you are, even if you’re a lazy bitch like me!
There’s no such thing as odd socks. They’re called mix ‘n’ match socks now. Like Mashems!
Or just get black socks and don’t worry about mixing and matching.
You can do that too, but it’s less fun! I’m just very easily amused, of course, but there’s something joyful about wearing odd socks. Especially if they’re contradictory. Like, I wonder what people think of someone wearing one bright pink sock and one yellow sock. Or one sock that says “Star Wars” on it and another sock that has dinosaurs. I have some Star Wars Han Solo socks where Han Solo looks like John Travolta. That’s not relevant to this, but every time I see those socks, they make me laugh because he looks very funny.
Several years ago, when I was still going into the office, I made a similar decision. I tossed all my old socks and bought like, 12 pairs of argyle socks in a variety of brighter colors and deliberately wore different colors every day. They’re the same brand so they all wear the same, just sometimes bright green and orange(or whatever) on each foot. I got a few questions at first, though never negative. People thought they were being helpful letting me know my socks didn’t match, but when I told them it was intentional they thought it was a great idea. Now it’s expected for me to have mismatched socks and no one notices. Of course, being WFH now, I almost never wear socks anymore. But on the occasion someone notices these days, they don’t really care.
Every ten years or so I get rid of all my socks and boxers, then buy new ones. All the same brand and at most two types. I never have to worry about finding a pair that match each other or anything like that.
When Marino wool socks go on sale at Costco, buy 10 of the same pairs.
Also
6. Don’t bother making your bed. I don’t know why my parents ever ingrained this habit in me, but one day I was like… why am I even doing this? and so I stopped. Of course, I still change my sheets and pillow cases regularly, but I don’t see a reason for making my bed every day.
I do it, because it makes a massive difference to me how tidy my bedroom feels and how welcoming the bed looks at the end of the day. I just have a duvet though, so it’s 10 seconds of pulling on each corner until it’s reasonably even - not going for perfection!
Sorry, but I find that really hard to relate. How would that make any difference, practically? At the end of a day, a bed is always welcoming to me - I mean, I don’t need an excuse to hit the bed lol, in fact, I need an excuse to get out of bed. On some lazy weekends I may not even bother getting out of bed lol.
It’s just psychologically nicer. It’s a bit like it being nicer to get on with work when my desk is tidy (not that I tidy it that often)
It seems that you are lazy on more than just weekends. Not everyone is like that and needs a “practical difference” to do things.
You’re not wrong that I’m lazy, but I also do things that actually need to be done. Like, I’m lazy about say, getting my haircut and will put it off, but I’m not lazy about say vacuuming the house, or waking up and getting ready for work - because those things need doing. I just don’t see the value in making the bed.
For me, I hate getting into a bed where the sheets are all bunched up and the pillows are still smushed from the night before. Making my bed means I have straightened sheets and fluffed pillows waiting for me when I’m ready to turn in, which feels welcoming.
I have a duvet too, I usually don’t make my bed but when I do it’s all about the trick shot - grab a corner of the duvet in each hand and whip it forward fast - like reins or something - and let it fall more or less perfectly on the bed with almost zero effort. Might take a bit of practise to get used to but this is what I’ve been doing for a long time!
I enjoy having a tidy bed, it makes me feel more relaxed. Also got drilled to it from my parents and in the military, it promotes discipline and you start your day by accomplishing a task (gives a positive mindset).
So, let me get this right, you don’t fold your clothes? Rather you just crumple them up and put them in the drawer?
I never thought of this as a viable solution but I am going to try it out! Folding laundry is my #1 chore left undone. I end up “living out of the basket” and nothing is ever done.
You’re absolutely right. I don’t fold shit. If I need to wear a proper shirt then I’ll iron it when I need it, but usually just wear T-Shirts & polo shirts, so it doesn’t matter.
Yep, just give yourself permission to live out of the basket and put the basket on a shelf. It’s tidier and you don’t feel as bad about it.
I like you. My husband has ADHD and he does the same thing. I fold my own clothes because it’s relaxing for me, but no one should feel like they have to.
Thank you, and yes, absolutely, sometimes I go beyond this as well (for example, I’ll decide to pair up some socks) but it’s always an added extra bonus, not an expectation that I’m failing to meet. Psychology matters as much as anything!
But don’t your clothes get all wrinkly that way? I’m a neat freak and I can’t imagine living like that lol
In my experience, I don’t care about wrinkles. Usually nothing is too wrinkly unless it’s been buried for a while. Once I started putting the clothes in the drawers they were significantly less wrinkly.
No, I mostly just wear t shirts and polo shirts and it doesn’t get wrinkly at all. It appears very neat until you open the drawer, and I’m the only one who does that anyways.
When this asklemmy question pops up the next time again, asking
What are your saved posts and comments here on lemmy, this one is the one I’m sharing then
You are my brother for life.
Thank you, but beware, as your new brother for life has some crazy hot takes and likes to argue a lot on the internet even though he probably shouldn’t. Lots of sibling responsibility! Although I don’t know which of us is the big brother / little brother.
If you are also an adult, I don’t think big/little brother matters any more. I’m also 6’1" & 220 lbs., so I haven’t been called “little” in a very long time.
Hit me with your craziest, hottest take - I can handle it!
I always wanted a big brother, though! I quickly checked your profile and saw you mentioned mid 30s, which makes you a little older than me, so I guess wish granted… although I am 6’4" and closer to 250lbs, so I guess we’re both big brothers-es. :P
Hit me with your craziest, hottest take - I can handle it!
It’s probably against the rules of this community and potentially against the law, so I’ll just say that I disagree with a value which Gandhi and Martin Luther King share, and that I agree with some, but not all, of Malcolm X’s beliefs.
Clean the filter in your dishwasher once every month or two, depending on how often you use it.
I clean ours every 1-2 weeks
Wash the sheets
Not technically a chore, but a chore preventer: Close the lid before flushing the toilet.
I run an Airbnb hosting in a room on my house for like 3 years and I’m still amazed by how little people actually did it. Even after we sat a signal asking for it just above the flush button. Having feces particles all around your brushes, toothbrushes, towels, etc is an image nobody has but myself it seems.
Read a paper on this at some point, and this has become standard practise at home. Notice that visitting friends don’t do this, so I thought about looking framing the paper and/or some figures showing those plumes after flushing (can’t remember what paper it was but I guess searching pubmed for “toilet flushing” will easily give some appropriate results).
edit: OK “toilet flushing plume” did the trick and showed this marvel (see figure 2) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9732293/
Damn Myth Busters!!!
Going over the counter with a swab and some random household spray soap. I think some people have the great habit to always keep the kitching clean, but we don’t, and I’ve noticed that when you really try to keep it clean it not only looks so much fucking more calm and not like a mind-pulling warzone of stuff to do, but I also noticed less (fruit)flies, which, now that i’m writing it, makes our kitchen sound fucking disgusting.
Check the air pressure in your tires. Seems like nobody does this these days.
My car has an alarm if they drop 0.1 psi
Clean the microwave and oven. People have some filthy microwaves(mine included).
Change your air filters regularly
and don’t forget those extra air handler things like if you have a HRV. i swear the previous owners of mine never cleaned it and the OEM filters basically disintegrated when i did it the first time after moving in. luckily all i had to do to replace them was cutting down to size those cheap-o washable filters from the hardware store, good enough to keep the large chunks out.
Even if they don’t carry the proper size at the hardware store, you can usually ask them to order one or find the correct size online for order. Often, they’re even cheaper online!
Checking on your neighbors.
Yes, power drills can clean bathtubs and toilets. Just use different brushes.
Instructions unclear. Used forstner bits. Bathtub now has extra drainage.
Drill brush!
Clean the shower drain. You can also get little nets for catching hair under the grate, at least for the ones usually found in my country. It’s surprising how much hair ends up there.
It’s also a good idea to pour a bit of something like green goblin down the drains once a month or so. I find it helps to prevent the otherwise inevitable buildup from soap scum and whatever fats n junk that make it down there.
Also, always wipe greasy kitchen stuff with a napkin or paper towel and toss it in the trash. Soap pans n things to make sure fatty water isn’t going down. Cleaning out the kitchen pipes after year’s of neglect sucks!
not relevant to every household, but regularly clean/rinse the effluent filter on your septic system (i do mine at least 2x a year)… and realize you may have more than one. it ain’t a pretty job, but you’re going to save yourself from a massive repair bill and/or damage from a backup by spending the 15 minutes to git er done.
Basically all of them, ugh.
Cleaning out the billionaires from behind the curtains