Tips for Keeping Up with the Laundry

One of the most commonly complained about chores in most homes is the laundry. These Tips For Keeping Up With The Laundry are sure to help you rid yourself of the stress and headache this chore currently causes. Not only can they help you keep up with this chore, but they will help you to enjoy it more.

Laundry is one chore I don't really mind but never seemed to be able to keep under control.  When the twins were little, I had 4 boys under 4 – one potty-trained but prone to night-time accidents, one in cloth trainers, and two in cloth diapers. That's a whole lot of laundry right there, let alone the multiple shirts for me whenever someone would spit up (how do babies always manage to aim away from a burp rag?!?), several changes per day from the twins while I figured out which cloth diapers worked best for them, and then the normal weekly bedding changes and laundry that comes from 6 people living in a house.

By changing the way I handled laundry, from the time it went into the dirty clothes until it was put away, I was finally able to get Mount Laundry under control and keep it that way!  Here are some of my favorite tips for keeping up with the laundry.

Tips for Keeping Up with the Laundry

Invest In Sorting Hampers For Each Room: If you have a dirty clothes hamper in your bedroom, change it out for a sorting hamper. Put one in each kids room, bathrooms, or any place you would typically be putting your dirty clothes after removing them. Choose one with 3 different areas so you can sort as you take off your clothes. One compartment for darks, one for whites, one for delicates. This saves a ton of time when you actually get to the laundry room. These mesh ones are cheap and work great for the kids' rooms!

Make Sure Everyone Has At Least 1 Week Of Everything: Sure you will likely have more than one week of clothing, but make sure everyone in your house has, at least, one week of things like underwear, socks, undershirts and bras. These items are what cause us to do loads of laundry quicker. Having a week's worth will help you not stress if you need to push the laundry back a few days because of a family emergency, illness, or just a really busy week.

Make Everyone Responsible For Their Own: Sometimes this is simply the necessity with older kids. If they don't wash their own clothing, make sure you enforce the rule that you won't be doing it for them. Assign everyone a day of the week to use the laundry room. If they don't make the time to do so, it is on them for not having the item they want to wear clean. Mine don't have to wash their own yet, but they are responsible for putting in their laundry basket and bringing it to the laundry room. We use a point system for earning electronic time and they get a point for taking it down, a point for folding a load, and a point for putting their laundry away, which saves me a lot of time since I don't have to do it for them & they don't try to get out of doing it themselves.

Assign A Laundry Day For Everyone In The House: If you are using sorting hampers for each person, you can easily focus on doing only one person's laundry each day of the week. If you have kids who don't have a full load, you can combine two of them in one day. Assigning laundry days will help you to know who and what to do each day, all while keeping a smooth flow of laundry in your home. Because I have a set of twin boys and two older boys that wear the same sizes, I found it easier to do the older boys' clothes one day, the twins' clothes another, my laundry one day, and then bedding/linens on another day. 

Color Code Laundry Baskets: When clothes come out of the dryer, sort them immediately into color-coded laundry baskets for each person in the family. Older family members can fold and put their own away. You will probably have to help with the younger kids, but having it separate will make it quicker and easier to give to them to put away.

Organize the Laundry Room: If you have a dedicated laundry room, make sure it is organized in a way that works for you. Having easy access to everything you need and a system you can stick to will save you time and reduce stress.

Declutter Your Closets: Use these tips for decluttering in 15 minutes a day to cut down on the clothing and bedding you have. Donate or sell clothes the kids have grown out of and get rid of anything in your own closet that you don't fit into (except maybe that one pair of goal jeans all us girls seem to have) or just don't like. One of my favorite ways to get rid of clothes I don't actually wear is the hanger trick. I started doing this a few years ago and found it the best way to see what I really wear and it's so easy!  Just hang up everything you can, but put the hangers in backward.  When you wash something after wearing it, put the hanger in normally.  At the end of six months or a year, get rid of anything that's still on a backward hanger.

These tips for keeping up with the laundry can help you to ease one of your biggest housework burdens. By getting others involved in caring for their own clothes as well as creating a routine you will be able to keep up with ease. No longer will you find yourself with mountains of laundry to be sorted, washed dried, and folded. The laundry room will no longer be a torture chamber when you get everyone involved.

What are some of your tricks for keeping Mount Laundry under control?

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