There’s a mound of laundry in the laundry room… again. Every laundry basket you own is occupied, and there’s overflowing laundry from every.single.one. of them. You’ve probably considered lighting it all on fire and starting from scratch. Or maybe that’s just me. Here are some laundry tips that will help you cut down on your laundry time so you can do other things… like dishes!
1 | Safety pin socks together.
Keeping sock matches together is about as difficult as herding cats. It doesn’t seem to matter how many socks I buy my kids, we always end up with stray socks and their partners go missing forever.
No one is quite sure what happens to those socks that are MIA, but to stop the problem, you can safety pin socks to their partners before they even go in the washing machine.
If you have older kids, you can give them a pile of safety pins to keep wherever they take their socks off. When your laundry is done… VOILA! Your socks are already matched!
Related Post 8 Ways to Battle Stay-at-Home Mom Boredom
2 | “Fill the Basket”.
Do you despise putting laundry away after it’s clean? ME TOOOO! I really cannot stand doing laundry in general, but the putting away part has me running for the hills. I tend to avoid it for days… okay, weeks!
I recently implemented a strategy to help me put things away before my laundry piles up. Since our kids have bedrooms upstairs, I keep a basket in the laundry room that is dedicated to their clothes.
I fold the laundry when it’s done in the dryer, and stick it in the basket. I don’t put the clothes away until the entire basket is full (usually takes 3 days) and then I make the trek upstairs to my kids’ closets. This keeps me rockin’ and rollin’ when it comes to keeping up with laundry.
My closet is attached to the laundry room, so I hang and fold clean clothes as soon as humanly possible (mom life happens, so it’s not always right as it comes out of the dryer) and then walk it straight to be put away.
If I didn’t have my closet so close, I would implement the same basket strategy that I use for my kids. As soon as the basket is full, it gets put away!
Related Posts:
Why It’s Important to Do Household Chores as a Family
Get Organized: 5 Simple Steps to Organizing Your Home
How to Create a House Cleaning Schedule That Works for You
3 | Washcloth and/or towel drawer.
It takes a lot of time to fold every.single.piece of laundry. When we lived in an RV for ten months, space was tight and I used a hanging shoe organizer to keep wash clothes in the bathroom. I realized that I didn’t HAVE to fold washcloths. They were easy enough to grab if I just put them in the organizer UNfolded.
When we moved into our new house, I still liked the idea of not folding washcloths, but I wanted it to be convenient to grab them. I present to you, the washcloth drawer. We have a drawer dedicated to wash cloths and I simply throw them in when they’re clean. No folding, no frills, just clean washcloths.
I’ve also used a wire basket and it worked well, I just needed that space back from the cupboard it was in.
For big towels, you can use the same strategy. If you have a large drawer or cupboard that you can use, towels don’t HAVE to be folded. As a busy mom, the most freeing thing has been tossing the towels in the cupboard and walking away. The time I save NOT folding towels is awesome!
Maybe when my kids are grown, I’ll go back to folding my towels. Or maybe not!
4 | Use dryer balls.
How much time and money does it take to use softener in every load? It takes a lot of both, if you’re using liquid softener, or dryer sheets.
The best thing I ever did was invest in dryer balls. These dryer balls are eco friendly and you can use them over and over again.
You won’t have to worry about keeping fabric softener or dryer sheets on hand, you can just pop a dryer ball in the dryer and your clothes will be perfectly soft and cozy!
Bonus points that these cut down on waste AND don’t put a bunch of nasty chemicals in your clothes!
5| Have every family member turn their clothes right side out after wearing them.
You’re plugging along, doing your laundry thing and suddenly you find yourself in a tangled mess of inside out clothes. Sound familiar?
If you want your laundry time to be faster, you will need to employ the help of your family. This simple and quick effort on their part will mean way less time spent on your end of the chore.
This change in habits may be easier said than done, but it will be a huge help! It is so much easier to fold and hang laundry when clothes aren’t inside out.
When your kids are old enough, they can certainly help out in this way and it will save you big on time!
6 | Have a dedicated place for family members to put their dirty laundry.
Again, having the help of your family is going to cut down on your time. One of the biggest time hogs in the laundry world is actually getting the dirty laundry to the laundry room. Who has time to pick up everyone’s dirty clothes? Not I! And not you!
This is a simple task for even the youngest of kids. You can make it a fun chore with this over-the-door basketball hoop that makes laundry a game!
Or, if you’re looking for something a little more sophisticated, you can put one of these laundry baskets in each bedroom or bathroom and call it a day!
7 | Keep your laundry room clean.
Do you avoid taking care of business because your laundry room is a disaster? I can relate to that one for sure! If my laundry room is a mess, I avoid it all together.
When dirty laundry is piled on the floor, clean laundry is piled on the dryer and things aren’t put away, I would rather walk on hot coals than do laundry (that may be extreme, but still!).
Not only does a dirty laundry room make you want to stay far, far away, it also keeps you from being efficient in getting your laundry DONE!
Maybe your laundry room is where the cat litter box, or dog dishes are. Keep them clean!
If your laundry room is a place where everything in the house collects, get an organizational system in place so you can easily put things away and clean up.
When I started to make an effort in the laundry room itself, the “doing laundry” part came so much faster AND easier!
How to Use These Laundry Tips When You Feel Overwhelmed
Laundry can be a VERY overwhelming and time-consuming task, especially as your family grows. It can be hard to find what works for you. Getting into a laundry routine isn’t easy.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed with your laundry situation and aren’t sure how to break free from the craziness, here’s how you can easily get started using the above laundry tips to get going.
Doing just a couple will make a HUGE difference!
Declutter your clothes, so you don’t have as much laundry to do.
Before implementing the tips, organize and clean your laundry room.
Implement one new tip each week.
Doing laundry doesn’t have to be your enemy. Take these laundry tips and make them your own. You will be less stressed and will free up so much time. If I can do it, you can definitely do it!
