READ AND RESPOND TO THIS DISCUSSION POST

(a) Being a single mom of three with two children who have very active schedules, we find ourselves constantly battling the war of never ending laundry. A few weeks ago, I was determined that we would catch up on all of the household laundry due to having an activity-free weekend. The plan was to complete all loads of laundry between Friday and Saturday.

(b) Once each person had sorted their clothes, we discovered that it would be 12 loads in total that would need to be washed and dried. The washer machines take approximately 1 hour to wash and 1.5 hours to dry medium-large loads, of non-bulky items. My strategy was to have a load washing while another was drying. Therefore, I calculated my estimated time of completion on the longer of the two activities at 1.5 hours multiplied by 12 which results in an estimate of 18 hours of labor. Understanding that the kids would be at school on Friday and I would be working from home. I logically split the 18 hours between the two days allotting 6 hours to complete my load on Friday, leaving 12 hours for the kids on Saturday.

(c) Although the time seemed strategically reasonable, I forgot to take into account the following items:

• The delay in reloading the washer and dryer due to taking meetings and working on project action items
• Pausing washing in the evening when someone was taking a shower
• Children falling asleep on Saturday during their allotted laundry timeframe
• Loads needing to be dried twice due to not drying completely the 1st cycle
• Running out of detergent and the time required to obtain more detergent

(d) The outcome of the total laundry war ended up exceeding the estimated time of completion. All laundry was not completed until late Sunday evening after a total of 26 hours of active work hours. As well, due to the additional day and cycles in the dryer, there was an increase on the electric usage during that weekend.

(e) The consequences of the inaccuracies was sacrificing additional free time on Sunday completing the tasks and the additional cost spent on the detergent and electric bill. Therefore, there was a missed completion date and an overshot of the budget set.