What's up with the laundry? Should I let them do it or make them do something more productive?

I haven't figured that one out yet either. I've seen them do laundry, but don't know if it's necessary.

The villagers do many things around the village that are part of life on the island, and not all of them contribute to your goals as the ultimate master of their lives!

Laundry doesn't help your village in any way. I would make your villagers do something else if I was you

i did that for a while but the more time that you spend saying NO to laundry the more often the villagers are going to try to do it!!!! (laundry is especailly popular with researchers!)

When I start new VV1 games I avoid creating the lagoon until much later in the game. It avoids having all the villagers get distracted by the laundry. And when I finally do start that task I have many more villagers to assign to it.