I want to talk to you about your laundry situation. I have heard wives and mothers in all different walks of life vocalize how overwhelming laundry is to them. Most of us have whole rooms in our homes dedicated to laundry, along with two moderately expensive appliances whose only job in life is to wash and dry laundry. So with all that, why are we all so overwhelmed with this? I believe laundry is hard for a few different reasons. Let’s only go over the most practical one right now.
How we all physically do laundry.
From what I can tell, this is how most of us do laundry. First, you go all over the house collecting all the dirty laundry, bringing it to one central location, and then wash and dry it. Most people then take it to another location; to the living room, bedroom, or wherever to fold it. Then, once it is folded into neat little piles, we have to go the distance of the whole house to deliver it back to it originating locations.
Ok, just for a second, pretend you are running a business, and your chosen “product” is making clean laundry. Now, picture yourself sitting in a conference room trying to explaining to investors your system for getting your product made. If you told them the above system, they may call your job into question.The system is inefficient at best and the CEO, you, are doing all of the product movement.
So, these are a few things that I have done to streamline the laundry situation in my home. Hear me, this is what works for me, if what you are doing works, then don’t mess with it!
Get someone else to bring the laundry to the laundry room.
Have the kids bring their own laundry to the designated laundry area. Even a 3-year-old can drag a laundry basket from one room to another! Now, before you get all “I-am-Mom-hear-me-roar” let me remind you of something. When you send kids to go get laundry, they are not going to do it the way you would. You would walk to the room, pick up the basket, look around the room, pick up any stray laundry, and then walk directly to the laundry room. Your kids probably aren’t going to do that, and if you try to make them, you will suck all the fun out of this situation. If you live in a two-story home, you may have to allow them to throw all the laundry down the stairs instead of carrying it, let them do it. They may also use this time to drag a sibling, or two, across the kitchen floor using a blanket for rope, let them. They might get into a sock fight, tossing them back and forth like snowballs all over your living room, let them. It will be a lot slower to do it this way, and it will make your insides crawl a little bit, but this is better for you and for them.
*NOTE* If the sock toss turns into an underwear toss (and that’s very likely), you might want to keep a running tab on the location of all of your personal underwear. You never know when a pair is going to get caught in the top of a lamp and go unnoticed until the kind hearted, elderly gentleman from next door stops by to borrow the battery charger. Just saying. It could happen.
Categorize what you put in the washer.
My mom always taught me to put the darks with the darks, the lights with the lights, and so on, so that the clothing will last longer, colors won’t fade and dark clothing dye will not transfer to lighter garments. That is all true and makes sense, but here’s the thing, all of the clothing in my world is going to either be outgrown or dawn a hole or tear long before the washing machine does it in. Three of my sons share a bedroom, so I wash all of their shirts, pajamas, underwear, and socks together. So, when I go to put away the folded piles I only have to go to one room. I know you just rolled your eyes a little bit thinking, “that won’t save that much time.” Try it. I do the same with the bedroom the baby and my girl share, as well as our master bedroom. Then, every other day, I do a load of just pants, because pants in my world get really really dirty. Lastly, anything that’s a rectangle: towels, blankets, sheets, all of those kind of things get washed together.
Be consistent.
Pick a system of when you run your washer and stick with it. Don’t wait until people are wandering around in their underwear looking for pants to make laundry a priority. When I used to leave the house for work each day, I would put in a load first thing in the morning, like even before my shower, and then switch it again right before I left the house for the day. When I first got home, I’d switch it again, and then again right before bed. I still ended up getting caught up on sheets and towels on weekends, but I heard a lot less “mom, I don’t have anything clean” in my mornings. Now, I do four loads a day, on pretty much that same schedule but I don’t do any on weekends.
You don’t have to do it the way I do. Maybe you watch Netflix every night, so try putting a load in the washer before you start your show and switching it to the dryer before going to bed. Or, maybe you get up and run every morning(go you!), so try putting the wash in before you go out, and in the dryer after your shower. Figure out what works for you and your family.
Smaller loads.
Just because you can fit a week’s worth of shirts for three boys in the washer doesn’t mean you should. A slightly smaller load will make your clothes come out cleaner and easier to fold.
Fold clothes right out of the dryer.
My mom used to fold hers on the couch while she watched TV at night. The only problem was she didn’t watch TV every night. Sometimes it would be a few days before she had time to take a break and watch TV. By then, the laundry would be a mountain to rival Everest and very overwhelming. I have a friend who puts it on her bed so she has to fold it before she can go to bed. I think we all know how that goes most nights. In my old laundry room, I had a small deep freezer, so it was easy to take it from the dryer and put my folded piles on top of the freezer. I mentioned my system to a friend a few years ago and she bought a card table like this one and put it next to her dryer. Ok, that sounds all well and good but you don’t have time for that right?
I challenge you to time yourself folding a load of laundry. The sister of my heart, my opposite, is going to roll her eyes when she reads this, but really try it. I’ll bet it takes less time than you think. I think it takes me about seven minutes to fold a load of pants. I’ll bet it takes almost half that time to find a basket and move all the clothing to some other location to be folded later.
Stop folding underwear.
Just stop, ok. I know we were taught to fold them. I know it looks pretty all folded in your drawer, but really, let it go.
Make your laundry room fun.
This is a room in your home that you are in and out of all day, everyday. Why not decorate it to make it feel comforting to you? My friend who bought the card table hung all of the artwork that she just couldn’t find a place for in her home in her laundry room. So, the walls were covered with things she liked. I found an app(FreePrints) that lets me print something like eighty pictures a month from my phone for free (I do have to pay shipping though). I started taping them together into a wall collage, and adding to it every month. It is also a great place to hang Bible verses you want to focus on.
Have a giveaway box.
I have a box sitting on my dryer for when I discover clothes that don’t fit or will not fit next year as the seasons are changing. As I pull clothes out of the dryer, I assess them, and if they fit the above criteria, I toss them in the box. I do this instead of going through everyone’s drawers once a season and weeding things out then. Saves time.
Try it, you’ll see it really isn’t magic.
