Taming the Laundry Beast
First we talked about clutter busting and then we moved on to meal planning. This week, let’s talk about something equally riveting shall we? I’m talking about laundry, of course. How do you tame the laundry beast?
The thing about laundry is that it is always there mocking me. At least it was always there mocking me until I finally realized that I will never be totally caught up on the laundry. The minute I am, I’ll need to use a rag to clean up a spill or it will be bath time and the kids will stuff the hamper with the day’s dirty clothes. As soon as I realized the obvious fact that laundry will never truly be caught up, it was easier to relax about it. (I realize not everyone analyzes their laundry, so this might not be the post for you!) After I gave up on totally being caught up, I sought out other ways to make the laundry job easier.
The most useful thing I’ve found so far is to limit the number of hampers in our house. We have one hamper in the upstairs hallway where all five of us toss our dirty clothes. The kids frequently help me empty the hamper into a laundry basket and bring it to the laundry room. The laundry room holds our only other hamper. It has three sections and all of us except the three year old are able to sort the darks, lights, and whites. From there, it’s easy to know which load to wash first. I do a load of laundry most weekdays and try to plan to not wash anything on weekends. Of course, it still gets backed up from time to time.
Over the summer, we purchased a new front loading washer and dryer. The high efficiency models have truly helped make laundry so much easier. I realize this isn’t a possibility for everyone, nor would I suggest getting rid of perfectly good, but smaller appliances. It’s just that be fair, I should mention that laundry is much less of a chore now that I can do bigger loads!
Finally, I’ve found that I’ve relaxed my rules about when things need to get washed. Bath towels are washed once a week and sheets every 2-3 weeks. It works for us and definitely lightens the laundry load. I also wash everyone’s clothes together. I didn’t always do that when I had a baby in the house, but now I most certainly do!
Enough about my dirty laundry! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist that!) What do you do to make those laundry piles more manageable? Have you found a meal planning system that works for you? Has anyone tried The Six O' Clock Scramble?