Strategies For Reducing Household Chores

Being productive. Eventually

I am thankful that my wife and I share duties when it comes to keeping our house organized and clean, at as much as possible when there’s a five-year-old running around smearing peanut butter on the baseboards or sharing her latest art project:

Dad Spent More Than Three Minutes on The Toilet

2024

(Nail polish on drywall)

But we both do our part. We fold laundry together. I'll clean the bathrooms while Melanie tackles some vacuuming and mopping. I might do a bit of yardwork while she organizes the closets. Typical daily duties are similarly shared. For instance, if Melanie cooks, I handle all the dishes and cleaning up while she relaxes. But if I take on cooking duties, I handle all the dishes and cleaning up while she relaxes.

It's all about give and take, this whole happy marriage thing. Still, there remains a bit of roiling underneath the calm surface of our shared duties — my wife’s strategies for reducing her workload.

For instance, Melanie is insistent that laundry is done each weekend. I’m grateful, because I often forget to do laundry until the only clean underwear in my drawer are my “Brazilian cut” boxers, which are uncomfortable, just about the most unflattering item of clothing an obese can sport, and only purchased because I don’t pay attention when shopping.

While weekend laundry is a must, it's done strategically so that I am in charge, alone, in folding it. If Melanie is going to be out of the house Saturday afternoon, you bet the laundry will be piled next to the washer and the first load run just before she sets off for the day. If she’ll be home all day Saturday but gone for a few hours Sunday, the laundry can, apparently, wait another day.

I know it’s no coincidence, because just last week Melanie broke her own hardline rule and did laundry on a Friday. This just happened to be the night she’d be spending with a friend, while I was at home with the kiddo, ahead of a weekend in which she’d be home all day Saturday and Sunday.

At least when we’re both home, folding laundry is a task we tackle together. Kind of. What typically happens is my wife announces the dryer cycle is done, so let’s head upstairs to fold the clothes and put them away. I unload the dryer, throw the clothes on the bed and immediately get to folding. It’s at this moment Melanie finds some other task that must be done. Now, I wouldn’t mind if this task she chose to do instead of helping me fold the laundry was quite the undertaking, like replacing one of our upstairs toilets that only flushes if you hold down the plunger for longer than it takes to empty your bowels. But it’s never that kind of task she suddenly must complete the moment there is laundry to be folded. It’s aligning my daughter’s toothbrush and toothpaste on the bathroom counter. It’s the sudden need to place little scented discs on the inside of the toilets (that never last long because, as a male, I’m duty bound to aim my urine stream directly at them). Or she’s suddenly overcome by the need to clean out the lint trap for an extended period. Usually, the exact amount of time it takes for me to fold the entire batch of laundry.

I know she suddenly takes on other tasks under the guise of remaining productive to get out of the more intensive or annoying duty — like folding the 47 pairs of pajamas my daughter somehow wore the week before which are all guaranteed to be inside-out. I know because of how we empty the dishwasher together.

Inexplicably, my wife needs the same amount of time to put away the silverware, and only that, as it did for me to unload the rest of dishwasher. I found it strange I could put away all the cups, bowls, glasses, Tupperware, pots, basically everything that wasn’t an eating utensil, in the time it took her to put away some knives, spoons and forks into a single drawer. So one day I did what any spouse who thought their wife was up to something would do — clanked some plates together to give the auditory illusion of me putting them away when I was, in fact, turned around and watching her work.

When I say “her,” I mean the sloth that had apparently taken over my wife’s body. Each piece of silverware was placed in the drawer individually, her arms moving at a pace akin to a conductor directing the cellos to close out the movement with a long decrescendo. It was clearly a stall tactic to ensure this was her only task in emptying the dishwasher. I knew as much because, when I called her out on her snail’s pace, she said she was “making sure all the silverware came out clean.” She dismissed my suggestion that if it took her take long to check, she should seek out some new prescription lenses.

We temporarily had a friend living with us, and I could have kissed her when she also called my wife out for this as the two of them emptied the dishwasher. Validation from an outside source!

So, has my wife changed her ways now that she’s been called out on her task avoidance strategies? Absolutely. She has seen confirmation I’ll do the task anyway, so she’s now found other ways to incorporate delay tactics into other household duties we supposedly share.

Now, it’s important to note this is no Holier-Than-Mine-Wife diatribe, for I am not without sin when it comes to taking a bit of a lackadaisical approach to household duties. However, I take what I feel is a far more reasonable approach to completing tasks I don’t want to do. I tell Melanie, “I’ll get to it.”

I can’t understate the importance of this phrase. You see, it confirms I will complete the task, but without giving a specific timeframe This allows me to put off extremely manageable tasks, like replacing the LED strip in the fridge, for upwards of several months. Longer if I still feel so inclined. Or more accurately, disinclined. I will do it, to be sure. When I feel like it.

Which isn’t today.

But I will do it, dear.