Pretty much everyone has been there to one extent or another at one time or the next. That moment when you realize that you’re behind on laundry. Like, WAY behind. As a result, an ominous pile of dirty clothes looms in your home.

Maybe you often forget about the clothes in the washer until they’re stinky, necessitating another run (busy people are famous for this one!). Or maybe you don’t get to the laundry until a most annoying reminder occurs–you run out of clean underwear.

Well, if you find that it’s high time to master your laundry mountain, this post is for you (it’s also for you if you’re the kind of nerd who just likes to read how people do their laundry like I am, lol)! To help you out, several other bloggers and I have written posts on how we do our laundry from start to finish. This is in the hopes that you will find the system that works best for you–for yourself, your family, your home, and your lifestyle–or so you can find ideas for improving your current routine. You can find links to everyone’s post towards the bottom of this post.

How I Do Laundry

Before I dive into my system, let me just clarify that I am a work-at-home mom. So, on a typical day, I am home most if not all the day (though I often run errands or do volunteer work in between home–and laundry-doing–times). That said, this system could still work for just about any other lifestyle. You may, however, need to tweak the times you do each task every day.

Frequency

I decided to start doing my laundry on a daily basis after being recommended this frequency by Holly Dvorak, a {highly recommended} family manager coach. At first, I was skeptical. It sounded like a pain–do a load of laundry every single day? But as I did it, I realized how much time and energy it saved. I now spend a grand total of about 10 minutes per day doing laundry on an average day. That’s compared to approximately 3 hours I’d spend doing it (not including time it was actually cycling) on a Saturday when my hubby was home to help watch the kiddos. That’s a savings of almost 2 hours per week! Plus, it has really freed up my Saturday and has significantly reduced my stress. I used to dread Saturdays!

Gathering the Laundry

To gather the laundry, I have just one hamper (similar to the one included in this set; I removed the lid so it’s easier to toss stuff in) in the house that has its centralized location at the end of the hallway where it’s easy for everyone to toss their dirty clothes. I put a cloth diaper pale liner in this hamper. This liner bag protects the hamper from smells and yucky stuff (like peed-on baby sheets). This liner also makes it easy to throw the laundry into the washer.

I have a total of two liners that I use for our hamper so that there is one liner in the hamper ready to receive clothes while the other is in the wash.

Washing and Drying the Laundry

Early in the morning, before I start breakfast, I take the bag out of the hamper and throw it into the washer–bag and all. This means that I am technically washing the dirty laundry from the day before. The bag is typically about half full. This volume occurs once a day and happens to be just the right amount of clothes for a single load of laundry.

As soon as the dirty clothes bag is out of the hamper, I replace it with the clean liner.

I set my front-loading washing machine to a normal, cold wash cycle. I add one or two tablespoons (depends on how yucky the load is) of my Homemade Castile Laundry Soap and the liner bag and its contents then start the machine.

Since a vast majority of clothes these days are colorfast, I don’t worry about separating my laundry. I actually HATE separating my laundry (you know, into whites, darks, delicates, etc.), so I love my system.

Before I get lunch (lunch starts at noon), I switch the laundry over from the washer to the dryer. I don’t use any fabric softeners or static sheets. Rather, I use wool dryer balls. If it is a nice, warm day outside and I feel up to it, I might hang the clothes outside on the line while the kids play (this adds an extra 5 or so minutes, but is really nice because I’m outside in the sun and getting a bit of exercise). I will also remove any more delicate items (mainly my shirts or my daughter’s dresses that would shrink in the dryer) and hang them to dry on a small drying rack I keep in our laundry room.

Putting the Laundry Away

Before I start my prep work for dinner (like gathering ingredients, chopping veggies, etc.), I get the dry clothes and immediately put them away.

To put the clothes away, I set the clothes basket on my bed and separate clothes according to person. My husband’s pants and shirts get tossed on his side of the bed near where his closet is (he sleeps in his boxers, so I don’t have any pajamas to wash for him), my tops and pants get placed in a pile on my side of the bed near where my closet is (I wear a tee-shirt to bed which also gets tossed in this pile; I don’t sweat, so I only wash my night shirt once every three or four days), and the kids’ shirts, bottoms, dresses, and pajamas get thrown into two small, colored baskets. My boys’ basket is red and my daughter’s basket is green (we also have a blue one for future use). The future idea behind these baskets is the kids will just take their own basket and put all their clothes away; since they’re all three yet too little, I still help them.  I also make a pile on our bed for all underwear (including the boys’ undies and my bras) and a pile for everyone’s socks. Once things are separated, I return the now-empty laundry basket to our laundry room then tackle putting the clothes away.

My hubby’s and my tops and bottoms all get hung up. So I hang them up. Since my hubby and I only go through one, occasionally two, of each per day, this task gets done in no time. Hanging clothes up is also faster than folding them.

Next, I take the boys’ basket into their bedroom. I drop all of their tops and some hangers onto the floor and they put their tops on their hangers (they LOVE helping). While they do that, I fold their pants, shorts, and pajamas and put them in their dresser drawers. If the boys are done putting their clothes on the hangers by this point, I hang them up; if not, I move on to my daughter’s clothes (she’s a baby so can’t help yet) and come back after that’s done to hang up the boys’ clothes.

After the boys’ room, I get my daughter’s basket of clothes and hang up or fold her things (if this task isn’t already done, of course).

Finally, I match and fold socks and fold underwear and bras. I give the boys their socks and underwear and they go put them in their proper dresser drawer and I put our underwear and bras in our dresser.

Extra Loads

Towels and Kitchen Cloth

Once every week, I do an extra load of laundry with our bath towels, hand towels, washcloths, and kitchen cloth (cleaning rags, unpaper towels, cloth napkins, and baby bibs; I keep a hanging wet bag like this on the oven handle to gather these items). I usually do this on a week day and I am prompted to do so when I grab the last rag! So this means that there is one day per week where I do 2 loads of laundry. In spite of this, it only adds about 5 more minutes of work somehow (I’ve timed it; this may be because of how I put them away).

To put these items away, I roll up the towels and put them on a shelf. The washcloths, unpaper towels, rags, napkins, and bibs I do nothing with other than stuff them into their designated bucket or basket (and often the boys put them away for me).

Cloth Diapers and Cloth Pads

I do a load of cloth diapers once every three days using this method and my Homemade Cloth Diaper Detergent. Once they’re done, I stuff the shells with inserts then throw them (unfolded or not really folded) into a drawer in my daughter’s room and any extra inserts and doublers into a basket underneath her changing table.

If it is “that time of the month,” I will toss my well-rinsed cloth pads in the load with the cloth diapers. Once they’re done, I toss them into a basket in our master bathroom. Once my baby’s out of diapers, I’ll wash the cloth pads with the towels.

Bed Sheets and Comforters

Once each month, I do another extra load with bed sheets. This is a single load with our queen-size sheets, the boys’ twin-size sheets (2 sets), and the baby’s crib-size sheets. All of them barely fit in a single load so far (once the baby is in a twin bed, I have a feeling this will turn into two loads). After they’re dry, I typically just put them back on the beds. I do have two sets of sheets per bed, but if I can avoid folding them, why not?

Since the boys still have “accidents” sometimes and since the baby sometimes has blow outs, I might have random extra bed sheet loads because of these.

Bed comforters are only washed when they’re obviously in need or every 6 months or so. Each comforter usually needs a dedicated load.

That’s All!

And that’s it! It takes me literally about 10 minutes total from start to finish to do our laundry every day on an average day.

I love this system because it makes it possible for us to own fewer clothes, we have fresh clothes daily, it frees up a lot of my time, and it saves us money because I’m done with re-washing the same load multiple times when it goes sour in the washer.

I’d love to hear from YOU! Tell us what YOUR laundry system is in the comments. And don’t forget to “hop” on to the other blogs to see what their systems are.

Hop On

Below are thumbnails and links that you can click on to visit the other blogs who are sharing all about their laundry systems. Before you “hop” on to the next blog, here are a few tips to help you select the best laundry system for you:

1. After browsing through the various laundry systems shared, pick one that sounds doable for your lifestyle and give it a try for at least 2 weeks. If it doesn’t seem like a good fit, move on to a different system. You may even find that a system that you thought was a no-way for you (like the daily method was for me) is, in fact, the best system for you. You might also find it best to pick and choose techniques from various systems to create your own unique system.
2. The key to effectively keeping on top of your laundry mountain is discipline. You must make yourself do it. This can be pretty difficult at first for some–especially if you’re ridiculously busy–but it usually gets easier as it becomes a habit (especially once you find the best system for you).
3. If you happen to be a super forgetful person (like me), set yourself a reminder (alerts on your phone are good for this), come up with a trigger action (I’ll share mine in a minute), and/or provide yourself a reward for completion (for example, you get a piece of chocolate after you have finished folding and putting away the laundry). For me, my trigger actions are preparing a meal. Before I prepare any of our three major meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner), I do something with the laundry.
4. The laundry system you use should serve you–NOT the other way around. You do laundry because it results in giving you clean clothes, making you more attractive, healthful, and pleasant-smelling. So doing laundry serves you and your family. However, if you use a system that is way more work than it should be, tweak that system so that it is easier for you to do. This will take trial and error–just stay the course and keep trying different things until you find what you prefer most. You’ll notice in my system that there are certain items I won’t fold. That’s so the system serves me. Those items might look pretty folded, but unless I’m taking pictures of them for a magazine, why bother? It does NOT have to be perfect.

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