I know that I am not the only one that procrastinates doing the laundry. I get stuck at almost every stage – sorting, washing, moving to the dryer/hanging up, ironing and putting the clean clothes away. At any given moment, if you came over to my house you would see which stage I am stuck in!
Years ago, the laundry at my house stressed me out so much that I decided to put a few systems in place. I started with sorting. I purchased 2 laundry sorters similar to the one pictured below (The Container Store). I labeled the bins as follows: Jeans, Whites, Darks, Lights, Special and Towels. The laundry sorters fit nicely in my closet and now when we have dirty clothes, we sort them automatically in the appropriate bins. I love that the bins have clear mesh so that I am able to see how full they are. As soon as any of the bins reach 3/4 full, I know I need to do some laundry.
The system that I have in place for the washing stage involves the laundry soap. I use the type of soap that has a dispenser and I was sick of the soap leaking out all over the top of the machine and making a mess. I decided to transfer the soap into travel size containers. I have various fill levels according to the size of the load. Another option would be to buy the individual packs of laundry soap. Here are the before and after pictures:
I love to hang dry my clothes or immediately hang them up when they come out of the dryer. When we moved into our house, I did not have anywhere to hang up clothes so I had some cabinets installed that have offered me storage as well as a place to hang clothes.
The last system that I have put into place is folding. I have adopted Marie Kondo’s Kon Mari Method for folding clothes that go into drawers or bins. The picture below shows how my workout clothes that used to take up 4 feet of closet space can now fit in one drawer!
Other Laundry Tips:
- Establish a routine – either morning, night or both. Make sure you keep the laundry moving through the stages (sorting, washing, moving to the dryer or hanging up, ironing and putting the clean clothes away) every day! Doing a little bit at a time is a whole lot easier than waiting a week and then doing all the laundry at once.
- Keeping up on your laundry every day will translate into needing less clothing.
- When you put your hang-up clothing away in the closet, always put the clean clothes away in the front (or left or right depending on your closet). This way, as the days and months go by, the clothing that is in the back are clothes that you know that you have not worn in awhile. That would be a great place to start when you are evaluating your clothing for donation.
- Whenever you buy a new shirt, always donate an old shirt. This way you never have to buy new hangers.
- Buy hangers that your clothes do not slide off of. I love the Huggable Hangers from The Container Store. These hangers also take up less space in your closet and look nice and uniform.
