Step One: Your Plan of Attack
Find a system that works that will keep you current with laundry. If you do not have one, here is what we use:
In our hall, we have four, 30 inch tall, plastic laundry hampers. Each one is a different type of laundry:
* Whites
*Colored underwear
*Everyday clothes
*Jeans, towels, sweats
This helps all of us to be able to sort the laundry quickly and easily.
Step Two: Sort It Out
Get your laundry room area cleaned out in order to be most efficient. This might take an afternoon if your area is small. If it is larger, I suggest taking fifteen minutes a day to get it in order. The best tip I have for this step is that we have a permanent “Give Away ” box in our laundry area for our clothes our kids have outgrown. When the box gets full, I take it to Good Will.
Getting rid of clutter can be a blessing to someone else as well. {click to tweet}
Step 3: Clean It Up
Before you start stocking up the shelves, give them and your washer and dryer a good wipe down. Deep cleaning makes any space a good one.
Step 4: Label It and Put It Away
This is the fun part! Label everything in order to make it easy to find. Some examples are stain removers, dryer socks, and socks (Mismatched Socks might be a better title sometimes).
Step 5: Keep It Up
The best way to keep up with laundry is to do it every day. The other thing that will make your life a lot easier is to remember this rule: Until the clothes are put away your laundry isn’t done. Just because the clothes are clean, and dry does not mean the laundry is done.
These steps will change laundry from something you dread to something that you can get done quickly in order to bring blessing to your self and your family.
Thank you for the reminder that “until the clothes are put away, the laundry is done.” For the longest time, I thought it was done when it was dry (even though it was sitting in the dryer). And then done when folded (even though it was sitting in the basket). It feels so much better when I don’t expect my husband to put away his laundry that is folded and sitting in the basket on his side of the room, and I just put it away and finally feel the task is finished, and also do something nice for him!
We usually have one laundry day a week. We have 3 cloth hampers hanging in the hall closet – lights, darks, and other (delicates, towels, sheets). Our 2-year old is learning left for lights and middle for darks.
I found myself stressing over the laundry because I was doing it ALL the time. I switched toone laundry day. We have laundry baskets in each kids room. They bring them out, sort them on Monday. We wash all clothes they are folded, put in baskets and kids pick them up and they are back in their rooms that night. I do other small loads if needed, but only if neccessary. It makes my life so much easier, and I am not running to the washer all week long 🙂
Here’s an idea that works for me. Instead of doing laundry every day I only do it twice a week. Yes, I have six people in my family and I only wash clothes twice a week! Monday is Dad, DS-10 and DD-6. Different genders and different sizes. Tuesday is Mom and DS-8. DS-8 and 10 are only one clothing size apart. They wear uniforms to school. Separating them out this way makes sorting to put away MUCH easier! DS-13 does his own laundry on Saturday so I don’t do his at all. 🙂 (Towels, sheets etc are on an as needed basis, so I usually throw them in on one of my already established laundry days.)