My last post, Real People Don’t Mind, talked about purging your closet from seasonal clothing, and then donating what you didn’t wear last season. Getting rid of clothes is easy, but deciding what to keep is more of a challenge. I’m a guy, and doing laundry each week is simple, I just put the laundry basket of clothes into the washer.
A gal friend of mine is in the process of minimizing. I was baffled by why she was telling me that she had to do more laundry each week now that she has less clothes. I just didn’t get it. She told educated me that she separates all of her colors. Seriously, she separates into five colors just for clothing. At best I used to separate light from dark, and then when I worked out every day I had a load just for those dry-fit materials. For clothes and towels, I had three loads per week, tops. She says that she downsized so much that she has to do several loads each week, per color.
I’m going to make some suggestions to my female readers. Keep in mind that you can comment below, help me Jesus. At some point I’m going to get down to jeans and several, identical, dark colored button-up shirt for work. I’ll do the same for t-shirts and short. I know, boring, right? But this makes life so less complicated. Think about it, all you need to do is grab a shirt and a pair of pants and you are done. There is no color matching and no mood choices. Many successful people do this, and in some cases they are considered iconic. Don’t think of it as boring, think of it as original and memorable.
You’ll notice that I said that I would choose all dark colors. This makes laundry easy. With all dark colors there is no separating dark from light, just put it all in the washer at the end of the week. If you’re a woman you might not think well of this notion. Keep in mind, when I was married, I appreciated how simple my wife kept herself. I really didn’t care about pink undies and such. OK, I admit, maybe I’d still be married if she wore pink undies……but I doubt it.
So, to my friend in the midst of a laundry crisis, my response, it’s temporary. Your clothing colors will work themselves out. As things wear out, just replace them with colors that fit your minimalist life style. In the meantime, mix some of the darker colors. If you are worried that guys will notice some color bleeding, don’t, we’re not that attentive. And if they do notice, do you really care?
If you have an opinion about this, or you are in a similar crisis, please tell us about it by commenting below.
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