If you stay on top of your laundry and put it away after the dryer cycle buzzer sounds, life will be easier for you. A system for laundry creates organization, even if you are unable to get it immediately to closets and drawers where it belongs. Organization methods, such as creating different baskets for each person in your family, make it possible to fold and organize simultaneously. This is especially important if you have a big family or a lot of laundry. It also makes sense if you reuse the baskets as a place to put dirty laundry so that each person’s laundry stays together. It makes washing and returning laundry to its appropriate place a much easier task.

A System, Shall We?

Let’s figure out a system. Do you like baskets? Do you like boxes? What works best for you? Laundry hampers? Based on your family, what’s the best way to manage the flow of laundry? Do you find that you have piles of laundry that need, for example, to go from washer to dryer but it never happens? Or is it hard to get things out of the dryer and folded? Or, from the folded stage to put away time?

Everyone struggles with laundry, especially when you have small children. The one thing I told my daughter when she became a new mom is that the amount of laundry she and her husband have to do quadruples with one tiny infant. It’s true. Swaddles. Little baby socks. Hats. Bibs. Ten outfit changes a day. Crib sheets. Blankets. You name it. It’s amazing how one little person can generate so much laundry. But babies do. And you need to keep up because when you fall behind, it’s like the laundry multiplies on its own. Seriously!

Less is more.

I’m one of those people who doesn’t mind laundry. In fact, I think it is relaxing to do laundry. But I didn’t when my kids were little because there was so much of it. Now, however, with only two of us home it’s easier to get the laundry in and out of the washer much more quickly. I also do short cycles, not the hour-long ones, unless something is very dirty. This reduces the amount of time it takes me to get the laundry done. I find that I can get in and out of cycles more quickly if I don’t overload the machine, reduce the washing time, and get the laundry out right after it finishes.

I know, it’s a pain and the temptation to let it sit there after the dryer buzzer goes off is great, but once a load is started it’s on its way to being completed. I also don’t let up. As I put one load in the dryer, I put another in the washer. Quick cycles. Less loaded. In and out. That way, I’m not washing all day. Once something is dry, I fold it and put it away.

Quick tip: If I am at my daughter’s house helping with the baby, she has a trick that makes things much easier for me. She has labeled where everything in the dresser goes. That way, when I come to see the baby and want to pitch in, it’s easy to put things away without having to ask for direction. It helps her husband know where to put things, too, which reduces laundry stress.

Return everything to its place.

So, this is where your system fits in. If you can put a system together and put laundry into baskets (or whichever system you choose) that eventually end up where they need to go, then you can work from room to room to quickly put things away. It makes life simpler and laundry time that much easier.

Another thought, laundry that sits on a closet shelf, for example, won’t topple if you use clear, heavy bookends to keep it in place. We discuss this tip in in one of our other The Uncluttered Life blog pages.

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