If Someone Always Forgets To Fold Their Clean Laundry, They Usually Have These 11 Personality Quirks
Is it really such a big deal that people forget to fold their laundry?
Erhan Inga | Shutterstock Everyone has that one chore they can’t stand. (Or, for some people, it’s more than one.) A lot of people would claim that doing laundry is their Achilles heel. I mean, sorting, washing, drying, and folding? It feels overwhelming. Yet, it’s a necessary evil if you want to remain hygienic and generally accepted by society. One of the worst parts of doing laundry is folding it, because it feels like everything should be done at that point. But you can’t just leave it lying around your house … or can you?
Technically, experts like Catherine Roster, PhD, say decluttering is important. Roster is the director of the Behavioral Lab at the Anderson School of Management at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. She said, “It gives people a renewed sense of control over their environment. When people go through the process of decluttering, they feel a sense of freedom and liberation.” So, yes, you should tidy up, but folding laundry just isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, those people have some pretty cool personality quirks in common.
If someone always forgets to fold their clean laundry, they usually have these 11 personality quirks:
1. They thrive in chaos
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Some people see a messy, cluttered space, and they simply can’t focus on anything. The mess in front of them overwhelms them and takes up all the space in their mind. They’ve just got to do something about it. People who just forget to fold their laundry aren’t like that. Instead, they thrive within the chaos of a mess. These people see the mess as something to co-exist with rather than something to conquer.
Leadership coach Dorothy Attema explained that, for some people, their identity actually comes from the chaos around them. “When someone doesn’t have anything to identify herself or himself with, she/he does it with anything available,” she said. “And chaos seems to be one thing that is always lingering around, so it’s easy to come [into] identity with it.”
This may be hard for some people who love organization to wrap their heads around. But, just like they crave order, some people prefer a disorganized mess. These people aren’t stressed about their space being untidy or constantly thinking about how they need to fix it. Instead, they’re adjusted to it, and they wouldn’t really choose to have it any other way.
2. They can find anything in a mess
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Similarly, people who always forget to fold their clean laundry don’t see a mess as something they need to clean up as soon as possible. Instead of being overwhelmed by the clutter, they can actually find what they need in the middle of the mess. Some people would assume that it would be necessary to reorganize to find what they need, but people who forget to fold their laundry don’t need to. They can easily find the right pair of pants in that pile of unfolded laundry.
Clutter can have many different effects on a person, Dr. Kristen Fuller, MD, pointed out. “Clutter and mental health are connected,” she said. “While clutter is sometimes associated with increased creativity, it can also leave you feeling stressed and overwhelmed if it gets to be too much or interferes with your ability to function effectively in your daily life.”
Some people see clutter, and they just can’t stand it. But, for others, clutter just works. It can even be a sign of creativity, which makes sense — doesn’t it seem like someone with a creative mind would be more prone to just leaving things lying around? People who forget to fold their laundry aren’t struggling and can actually always find what they need despite the apparent mess.
3. They put things off for later
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Does anyone really ever get a fresh load of laundry out of the dryer and think about how excited they are to fold it? Even people who always fold their laundry probably aren’t pulling it out from the dryer and into their basket, looking forward to the prospect of folding it all and putting it away. So, it only makes sense that someone who really doesn’t like folding their laundry would just put it off. Of course, they’ll never actually get to it, but they had good intentions.
Psychosocial rehabilitation specialist Kendra Cherry, MSEd, explained, “Procrastination is the act of delaying or putting off tasks until the last minute or past their deadline. It’s not just a time management problem. Researchers suggest that it’s a failure in self-regulation that leads us to act irrationally. We put things off, even though we know this delay will lead to negative consequences.”
Everyone procrastinates to some degree over some things. No one is perfect, after all. Some people are better at recognizing the pitfalls of procrastination, though, and although they may initially put something off, they pick it back up before it gets too late. This does not describe people who forget to fold their clean laundry. They put that task off and never really get back around to it. And the thing is, they don’t have a problem with it. It’s just what they do.
4. They don’t mind wrinkled clothes
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Another personality quirk of people who always forget to fold their clean laundry is that they really don’t mind wrinkled clothes. There’s a reason we store clothes hanging up or neatly folded, and it’s not just for aesthetics. That’s what’s best for the care and keeping of the clothes and how to ensure they’re ready to wear. Leaving clothes in a pile when you take them out of the dryer means there’s no way around them getting wrinkled, but some people just don’t care.
Slate columnist Seth Stevenson argued that we actually place too much importance on clothes being wrinkle-free. “What you’re really doing when you leave your house in ironed clothes is engaging in an elaborate signaling ritual,” he said. “You demonstrate that you have devoted time and resources to ironing (or to compelling other people to iron for you), which in turn connotes respect for a (silly) social compact. You use your crisp clothes to advertise yourself as a rule-follower, and you hope that in turn you will derive benefit from being perceived as one who follows rules.”
If you want to get really technical, it is the society and culture that we live in that forces us to wear clothes without wrinkles. There’s no real reason to do this other than worrying about the way you will be critiqued. People who just don’t worry about their clothes being wrinkled might actually be onto something and subtly protesting societal expectations. That doesn’t mean you should walk around looking like you just rolled out of bed, but it is something to consider.
5. They’re easily distracted
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Someone who always forgets to fold their laundry once it’s clean probably gets distracted pretty easily. Maybe they actually start folding the laundry, or at least have a solid plan to do so, but then something else comes up that feels more pressing — or more interesting. So, they devote their time and attention to that other thing for what’s meant to be a limited period of time, until all of a sudden, they’ve forgotten about the laundry altogether.
Gloria Mark, PhD, chancellor’s professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, explained on the American Psychological Association’s Speaking of Psychology podcast that switching between different tasks frequently actually isn’t good for us. According to her, people who switch tasks often tend to be more stressed and less productive. “It uses more of our very precious mental resources on top of the work that we actually need to do,” she said.
There’s nothing wrong with multitasking sometimes or doing something that feels a little more interesting when you’re tired of doing something mundane, but switching tasks too frequently could actually have negative effects. So, if you’re one of those people who start folding their laundry and then move on to something else, it might be a good idea to try to stay focused on that original task instead, no matter how annoying it might be.
6. They don’t remember until it’s too late
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Who among us hasn’t had something important but boring they need to do, like folding the laundry, that they kept saying they would get to … but suddenly they find it’s time for bed and they have no energy left for it? The logical thing to do is to move that thing to the schedule for the next day, but let’s be real — no one actually does that. Sometimes, you just don’t remember something until it’s the end of the day, and, in those situations, it’s most likely that that thing just isn’t getting done.
If someone really didn’t want to do something, like fold laundry, it’s logical that they would put it off until it was literally too late in the day and then just never get around to it. This may not even be an intentional, conscious choice they make. Rather, their subconscious mind might decide for them. Regardless, not remembering they need to do it until it’s just too late is one personality quirk of people who forget to fold their laundry.
7. They lean toward minimalism
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Minimalism isn’t quite as popular as it was at its peak a few years ago, but plenty of people are still choosing to go that route. They recognize the over-consumption that is so pervasive in our culture and do what they can to fight it. This means not buying every cute thing you see. Often, when it comes to clothing, that means creating a capsule wardrobe filled with pieces you can easily mix and match to create multiple outfits without needing to buy a lot of things.
Joshua Fields Millburn, from the show “The Minimalists,” shared that living a minimalist lifestyle helped him with far more than just getting rid of things he didn’t need. It benefited his relationships, finances, and creativity. “You see, removing the clutter is not the result of minimalism — it is merely the first step,” he said. “Understanding why you’re taking that first step gives you the leverage you need to keep going.”
This doesn’t mean everyone needs to become a minimalist, but it shows there are benefits to doing so beyond just buying and owning less. If you’re a minimalist with a capsule wardrobe, you don’t need a ton of clothes. That makes those piles of unfolded clean laundry a lot smaller. In fact, they might get so small that someone just doesn’t feel the need to put that laundry away.
8. They need the right vibe
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Some people simply cannot move forward with doing something unless the vibes are right. Maybe they want to play some music or listen to an audiobook, and they’d rather light candles than rely on harsh overhead lighting. Most of all, they just need to feel like doing something before they actually tackle that thing. This is true of some people who always forget to fold their clean laundry. They want the right vibe to do so, and they’re willing to wait for it, even if it takes forever.
Cherry cautioned against this. “One of the biggest factors contributing to procrastination is the notion that we have to feel inspired or motivated to work on a task at a particular moment,” she said. “The reality is that if you wait until you’re in the right frame of mind to do certain tasks (especially undesirable ones), you will probably find that the right time simply never comes along and the task never gets completed.”
The truth is, you don’t really need to have the perfect vibe to do something, especially when that something is as basic as putting away some laundry. Nothing is perfect, so if you’re waiting for the perfect moment, it will never come. That doesn’t stop people from feeling this way, though. They just need to make a few adjustments before they get started (and then a few more). You won’t be able to convince them there’s a better way to go about doing it.
9. They underestimate how long it takes
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It’s so easy to take a look at a task like folding laundry and assume it will only take a few minutes of your time. (The ironic thing is that if you stay on top of folding your laundry and take care of it as soon as it’s out of the dryer, it actually will only take a few minutes.) But if you’ve got a nice pile that’s built up over time, it’s going to take more than a few spare minutes. It’s easy to assume something will be easy, though, and then you don’t block off enough time for it, and you’re left with it incomplete or half-completed.
“Remember that time that you thought you had a week left to finish a project that was really due the next day?” Cherry asked. “How about the time you decided not to clean up your apartment because you ‘didn’t feel like doing it right now?’ We often assume that projects won’t take as long to finish as they really will, which can lead to a false sense of security when we believe that we still have plenty of time to complete these tasks.”
Thinking, “Oh, I’ll fold the laundry in the five minutes I have between lunch and that Zoom meeting,” may sound like a good idea, but it isn’t always realistic, depending on how much laundry there is. If someone doesn’t give themselves enough time to do something, they’ll probably end up just giving up in frustration, and it will never get done. This is a classic move of people who forget to fold their laundry.
10. They go with the flow
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Someone who always forgets to fold their laundry is pretty likely to be laid-back and go with the flow. They aren’t super fussy about having everything in a certain place and keeping their living space in order. When laundry is done, they get it out of the dryer, but they don’t feel a need to put it away immediately. A pile of laundry just isn’t a huge concern to them.
In a separate article, Cherry said that people who behave in this way likely have a type B personality. “One major advantage of this personality type is the ability to cope well with stress and pressure,” she stated. “Even when stress is piling up, type Bs are usually able to maintain a level-headed, optimistic outlook.”
So, when stress is piling up, which could literally manifest in the form of clean laundry piling up, some people just don’t freak out. They’re much more positive and willing to overlook the things that would cause other people to feel anxious. Naturally, these people aren’t too worried about the laundry they need to put away. They’ll get to it eventually, and they’re just fine with that.
11. They’d rather have fun
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Has anyone really ever looked at laundry and thought about how fun it is to do whatever needs to be done with it, whether it’s washing or folding? Laundry isn’t most people’s idea of fun, but it’s something that we all have to do. One very possible explanation for why someone would forget to fold their laundry is that they prefer to do things that are more fun. It may sound silly, but some people just like to live life with more whimsy.
Mike Rucker, a psychologist and the author of “The Fun Habit,” said, “Happiness is a state of mind. But fun is something you can do. It doesn’t require education, money, or power. All it requires is intentionality. If happiness is a mirage, fun is your backyard oasis.”
There are a lot of benefits to having fun. It’s something that most of us neglect once we reach adulthood, and instead, we look back on it as a fond memory from childhood. But getting older doesn’t mean you can’t continue having fun. However, you do have to balance that fun with responsibility. In other words, you should probably still put the laundry away.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
