Simplify Your Laundry System

Laundry...the bane of our existence. If you are someone who enjoys doing laundry, you are in the minority. Most of us find this chore mind-numbing, and we get frustrated that as soon as we finish the chore, there is immediately more to wash. It's endless.

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Don't Overcomplicate It

Were you taught to separate clothes into categories like darks, lights, whites, and colors? If you continue to do laundry this way, you are likely wasting your time. For the most part, you can throw all your laundry into the same load and wash it all with cold water. This is because modern-day laundry detergents work well in cold water and are color-fast, making the practice of pre-sorting unnecessary.

There are a few exceptions to this.

1. When you buy a new piece of clothing that is heavily dyed (like dark denim), you should wash that item by itself the first couple of times to reduce the likelihood of color transfer to other clothes.

2. Occasionally, you need to brighten your whites with hot water and a little oxygen booster or bleach.

3. Very delicate clothes do best when washed on their own and then line-dried.

So, yes, we may occasionally need to pre-sort our clothes, but not for the bulk of our everyday laundry.

Create the Schedule

I know some people like to do all of their laundry in one day. I can see how this would work well for a single person or someone using a laundromat. But, if you are doing laundry for more than one person, and you have laundry facilities where you live, I think one laundry day is crazy. While doing laundry doesn't take a lot of actionable time, it can take well over an hour just in machine time. Trying to fit several loads into one day can easily lead to running out of time, resulting in laundry piles around the house.

Let's look at some options for scheduling laundry and the Pros and Cons of each.

Schedule Each Person's Laundry on a Given Day

Example - Monday is Person 1's laundry day, Tuesday is Person 2's laundry day, Wednesday is Person 3's laundry day, Thursday is Person 4's laundry day, and Saturday is for household laundry (towels, etc.).

Pros

• This makes putting laundry away easy because you don't have to fold and sort into piles for each person. You simply wash, dry, fold, and return to that person's room.

• This allows everyone who is old enough to do their own laundry.

• This can also decrease the amount of household laundry because each person can be responsible for their sheets and bath towel on their laundry day.

Cons

• You can have every person wash their own towels and sheets on their laundry day, but you still likely need at least 1 household laundry day for throw rugs, shower curtains, kitchen towels, tablecloths, throw blankets, cleaning rags, etc.

• Assuming 1 household laundry day, this won't work if your family is larger than 6 people because there aren't enough days in the week.

Daily by Pre-Sort Categories

If you just can't let go of the idea of pre-sorting your laundry, you can wash a category a day.

Example - Monday is for Darks. Tuesday is for Lights. Wednesday is for Whites. Thursday is for Delicates. Sunday is for Sheets and Towels.

Pros

• You can feel confident that clothes won't get ruined due to color transfer.

• You likely have just 1 load a day.

Cons

• Assuming more than 1 person in the household, each load is comprised of several people's laundry that then have to be distributed back to the correct people/places.

• This could easily mean more loads of laundry than if you just combined things.

Everybody's Laundry Every Couple of Days

If you have a small household, simply collect everyone's dirty laundry to do a load every other day or so.

Example - If you have just 1-3 people in your household, you can likely fit a couple of days' worth of everyone's laundry into one load. So just do a load every couple of days and occasionally throw in a household load (or combine the household stuff right into another load.

Pros

• Laundry doesn't pile up

• You can keep a more minimal wardrobe because you don't need to go a week before washing something.

Cons

• You still have to sort the clean laundry for each person.

As you think of which system would work best for your household, let me remind you of a couple of things.

1. Doing a load of laundry from start to finish does not take much actionable time. Most of the time is spent waiting for the machines to do their thing. Your hands-on time is likely less than 30 minutes spread across the process of washing 1 load.

2. If you have a laundry basket for each person, you can fold and sort right into the baskets and return the clothes to the correct bedroom to be put away.

3. Folding or hanging items as you remove them from the dryer can significantly reduce wrinkles, which in turn reduces the number of items that require steaming or ironing.

4. Don't overwash your clothes. Most clothing items like jeans and sweaters, can be worn several times before they need to be washed. If you need to spruce them up in between wears, take a small spray bottle and fill it with a 50:50 water and vodka solution. Spray clothes, then allow them to air dry to remove any subtle odors.

   
   
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Complete the Process

No matter which laundry system you follow, the key is to complete the process. Doing a load of laundry does not mean leaving it in the dryer for days. It does not mean folding the laundry and leaving the piles all over the living or dining room.

Completing the laundry process means collecting, washing, drying, folding/hanging, AND putting away.

This is why I don't like the idea of saving up laundry for one big laundry day. When you have 6 loads of laundry to do, the chances of you completing the process through to the end and putting it all away are unlikely. You also will probably have heaping piles of dirty laundry beforehand and never be able to find the piece of clothing you're looking for because it's probably dirty.

People who resist the idea of doing laundry multiple times a week often have a very skewed idea of how long 1 load of laundry takes. I get it. If you've always waited until you had 6+ loads of laundry before you started your washer, it would seem like a daunting concept. However, the reality of the situation is that the hands-on time of doing laundry is small. About 5 minutes to collect the laundry and take it to the washer, 2 minutes to start the washer, 5 minutes to transfer to the dryer, 10 minutes to fold or hang the clothes, and 5-10 minutes to take care of the laundry.

Bonus Thought

If you are someone who lets your laundry pile up to do several loads in one day, you might also be someone who lets your dirty dishes pile up until you have no choice but to do the huge chore of "doing the dishes". Just like laundry, if you do the dishes every day (or multiple times a day), the chore is quick and easy (and your kitchen is cleaner).

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