Laundry: What Else Is There?

I’m sure most of us could think of a thing or two, in between commuting to work, paying our bills, making dinner, cleaning out the cat litter box, shoveling the walk and filing that TPM report, that we would do with an extra 45 minutes in our lives. And while many of the things we do in life are necessary, cleaning your own clothes might not have to be.

Want to Learn a New Skill?

According to author John Kauffman, learning a new skill doesn’t take the traditionally cited 10,000 hours. Instead, he argues, it only takes about 20. Kauffman, author for the book The Personal MBA, purports that a person can become versed in a new skill in about 45 minutes a day, if practiced for about a month (roughly 20 hours).

Gasp! What else takes 45 minutes a day? That’s right, laundry does. So why are you still washing your own clothes? Think about the mountains you could move with just 3/4s of an hour added back in to your day!

For most adults, self improvement happens in the cracks of our lives. But what if you could give yourself back a moment to master something new every day, in the time it takes to fold a batch of underwear? What skills could be learned in 45 minutes a day? Why, you could learn to:

  • Ride a skateboard
  • Play a song on the piano
  • Learn a foreign language
  • Write a gripping short story (suggestion – zombie spies in cold-war Russia??)
  • Learn new recipes from other cultures
  • Learn other skills that are needed in your line of work
  • Train for a bike race
  • Do some painting
  • Juggle fine china

That’s nice, but I still need my laundry done you nut!

Ok, so you probably don’t need much convincing that laundry is inevitable. Everyone needs clean clothes. You can’t wear the same underwear to work four days in a row.. So what options might one have to help with cutting down on laundry time?

The way I see it, you have two options. Get an Amazon subscription for a new set of clothes everyday (expensive and terrible for the environment) or, if you’re local to Salt Lake City, Red Hanger Cleaners offers a laundry wash and fold subscription service, a very viable alternative to the drudgery of weekly laundry time. Red Hanger’s delivery service allows subscribers to leave their soiled duds out on their doorsteps, and in a few days, clean, folded clothes appear like magic.

If you’re looking to buy back a little more time in your week to finally learn to play that piccolo or write that rock opera, a laundry subscription service might be the thing for you. According to the experts, it only takes 45 minutes a day to learn a new skill. In lieu of giving up your lunch break or waking up early, try cutting out the time spent shoveling your clothes through the laundry cycle. It might just be the perfect way to teach yourself deep-sea oyster diving. And with 12 months in the year, you’ve got 12 new skills coming your way. Or you could keep on developing your skills at doing laundry…but there are only so many ways you can learn to fold a t-shirt.