What the Laundry Basket in the Hallway Taught Me

There was this laundry basket sitting in the hallway. It was full of washed towels, right in the middle of the hallway. It was in the process of moving from the laundry room to the linen closet. Nothing unusual about that. Except for one thing. It had been sitting there for more than a week.

Every single day we looked at it. We walked past it. We walked around it. We almost tripped over it. Yet we did absolutely nothing about it for almost ten days. Today, as I looked at it, my mind spoke to me rather sternly and said, "Enough. Do it. Now." I was taken aback at the tone of voice myself.

There was no debate, no room for negotiation or "I'll do it later." I picked up the basket, dumped the towels onto the dining table, started a stopwatch, and began folding. Do you know how long it took me to fold the entire stack? Two minutes and three seconds.

Two minutes and three seconds. Yet I had let those towels sit untouched in that basket for more than a week. I had to ask myself, What was stopping me? Was the laundry going to magically fold itself? Was it going to grow wings, fly upstairs, and neatly settle itself into the linen closet? Was someone else going to do it? My husband is wonderfully helpful around the house. He loves to cook and helps in so many ways. But this particular task? It simply doesn't bother him. It probably wouldn't even occur to him to put those towels away. So if this basket was ever going to disappear, it was going to have to be because I put it away. Then why had I left it sitting there for so long? Honestly, I had no good reason. Sometimes there really are valid reasons. You're not feeling well. You're exhausted. Life gets in the way. But this time? I had absolutely no excuse.

In that moment, something shifted. Instead of letting my procrastinating mind tell me, "It's okay... later..." or simply continuing to ignore the basket as I had done for days, another voice took over.

My own inner voice. It simply said, "Enough. Do it now." It took command. There was no thinking time. No overanalyzing. I picked up the basket and got the job done. In two minutes and three seconds.

There are so many lessons hidden in that little laundry basket story. I'm sure many of you have experienced something similar. Laundry sits waiting to be put away for no real reason. Boxes stay in the car for weeks or even months before being donated. Groceries get brought into the house and sit on the kitchen counter for a couple of days before they're finally put away. These things happen. Sometimes it's almost as though we have trained our minds to walk around these unfinished tasks instead of through them.

Today there were plenty of other laundry chores waiting for me. But I chose to finish folding those towels first. That one tiny action made me feel surprisingly empowered. It reminded me that these little tasks rarely take as long as we imagine they will. And by getting that one small task done, I solved several problems all at once. The hallway was clear again. We had fresh towels ready to use. And perhaps most importantly, I felt good about myself because I had finally done something that had been quietly weighing on me. Now I'm ready to tackle the next small task - the laundry that's been drying on the rack for the past couple of days. I'm sure that won't take as long as I imagine either. Soon my hallway will be mine again. Freedom from visual clutter and the mental clutter of yet another unfinished task.

Sometimes all it takes is one small action. One micro-step. When things feel out of hand, think smaller.

Even Marie Kondo has said that her laundry piles up sometimes, so I'm certainly not surprised that mine and yours does too. It's OK. Regaining control is within reach. Take one task. Break it into a micro-actions that take just two or three minutes to do. Every micro task clears a little space in your home and a little space in your mind. And once that wheel starts rolling, you often find yourself motivated to keep going.

So if you have a laundry basket that's been quietly calling out to you, or any other chore that you have been putting off.....set a timer for 5 minutes. Get started.

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