When I first became a wife and then mother I found myself easily overwhelmed by the amount of laundry thats always needed to be washed. I felt like I spent everyday washing clothes. Over the years and, eventually adding another child to the mix, we had a laundry situation! I knew I needed to find a way to be more effective in my efforts to keep laundry baskets empty!
I know laundry is an unpopular topic and probably the last thing you’d like to think about. That said, I’m sharing some useful tips below on how to approach handling your laundry.
1.Divide Clothes into the following categories.
Bedding, towels, white clothes, color clothes, gym clothes and delicates.
2. Determine how many loads you have per week.
For example: Bedding- 2 loads, Towels – 4 loads, White clothes – 2 loads, Color clothes – 4 loads, Gym clothes – 1 load, Delicates – 1 load
3.Determine how many loads you have and how many days you want to wash.
This is a good time to look at your calendar and determine what days you have availability to wash clothes. Also, use this time to look at your calendar to see if/when any specific events, practices or games are so you can make sure you have those items washed and ready. For example, if you have 15 loads of laundry that will need to be washed and only want to wash for 3 days a week, then you would need to wash 5 loads per day.
4. The Laundry Cycle
I like to organize loads I wash based on their specific “Laundry Cycle” this makes the process so much easier. The Laundry Cycle is each step the load of laundry goes through from start to finish. Here is the Laundry Cycle:
I like to wash all of our bedding on the same day because they follow the same Laundry cycle: sort, wash, dry, and put away (in this case, back on the bed). On Mondays I wash all of our bed linen, 2 separate loads (our bed linen as well as the bed linen for the kids). I’ve found by washing loads with the same Laundry Cycle on the same day makes it easier to get the laundry put away.
5. Start early!
One way to ensure you get your laundry taken care of for the day is to start early! Make putting that first load of laundry in part of your morning routine. I also set reminders to keep myself on track to make sure loads are getting moved from the washer to the dryer and then to the next step in the Laundry Cycle.
6. Only wash what you can complete the Laundry cycle for that day
There are some days where I am busier than I expected and even though my plan is to wash 4 loads I may only be able to complete the laundry cycle for 2 loads. In that case I only wash 2 loads.
I know laundry is not something we look forward to or are even excited about but I hope these tips help you organize your approach making your laundry days more effective.
If you try this method out I’d love to hear how it is working for you.
