If you’ve met me, you’ll know that my brain is always cranking away (and that I frequently refer to my brain in the third person). Sometimes I get ideas that I would love to see implemented, but which I am not in a position to bring into reality. Truth is, I’m either too busy with other things to do them, know that even if I could get it started that I’m not the right person to keep it going, or I just know I don’t have the skill set necessary to make it as awesome as it could be. Up until now, I have simply stored them away in my head, written them down in one of a growing collection of journals, or chatted about them with friends and strangers hoping that someone would bring the idea to light. I now will start jotting them down here to share with the world in the series “Idea Hand Off.” Someone, please, take them and run! (Then write to me and tell me where to find it!)
A good number of ideas come from the sense that I don’t have enough time to do what I want and/or need to do in a given day. I know many inventions originate from this same sense, often with the contradictory effect of taking a lot of time to create-test-rework-perfect. This one, though, doesn’t take much time to understand: a laundromat & gym.
Both when I’m doing my laundry at the laundromat and when I’m working out, I get the sense that I could/should also be doing something else. This sense is particularly acute when I’m doing laundry, something that takes up my attention for maybe 10% of the actual time needed to accomplish the task. Oh, sure, I could go back to washing everything by hand just so I felt like I was actively involved during the entire process, but I’d prefer to let modern machinery do what it does best, save us time, and find something else to do with the time that’s been saved. I have tracked down a handful of wifi enabled laundromats or laundromats attached to wifi cafes (yay!) which help, but how much better would it be to be able to move and get all dirty while you’re getting your clothes clean?
My personal preference would be to have someone open a laundromat adjacent to (or inside) my current rock climbing gyms, but I’ll also go for having a dedicated laundry+gym. Maybe everything could be coin operated so there are no gym membership dues. I would simply just drop some additional quarters in to enable the elliptical machine, etc. Or maybe it’s a day-rate for the gym area. I haven’t fully worked out the details — but then that’s the job of whoever decides to take up this Idea Hand Off.
Of course I have other laundromat concepts coming… Well, while we’re at it, how about a child’s play area with kid watchers (like Ikea’s) in a laundromat? I don’t have kids, but boy would having to pay for a babysitter in order to get laundry done add another major pain to an apartment living family’s world, huh?
Well my first IHO was a two-fer. Leave it to me to break with my own plan.
3 Comments
Great ideas, both the gym/laundry + IHO. You rock, as always.
Now, the best part of all is “Get dirty while your clothes get clean”. I’m kind of like that woman in Pattern Recognition who has allergies to successful brands and that slogan itches like crazy. I think you are totally on to something.
When I lived in S.F., I paid other people to do my laundry for me … dropping off bulk laundry at the cleaners down the block only cost me marginally more than doing it myself at the laundromat down the street; and it was so much nicer to drop it off in the AM, and pick it up that same PM.
But I really dig the idea of laundro-gym … and here in Utah, I’ll bet that idea would really fly. Hmmm … where to find the financing and the expertise?
Flahute: DO it!!!! That would be so awesome.
I too like wash and fold. What a great service. Your laundry comes back gift wrapped too.