When you ask most moms what their least favorite chore is, many will say “laundry!!” without a second thought. Most of us are in need of some good laundry tips. It’s so easy to procrastinate and let laundry pile up. But when you do that, the job only gets worse because the mountain gets bigger and bigger. By the end, the kids are wearing clothes two sizes too small because nothing else is clean. And let’s not even get started on the folding!
Honestly, there have been times when I wanted to be done with it and just hire a laundry service. Unfortunately, that’s not practical for most of us who stay home (although it’s a great business idea!). So here are my best laundry tips to help you beat the overwhelm and conquer your mountain of laundry once and for all.
Should you do a load of laundry every day?
Luckily, I finally found the secret to never get overwhelmed with laundry. You might gasp a little at how I do it. I certainly did when I first heard about this system. I definitely thought it was a little crazy. But I’ve been using it for years now and it works better than any other system I’ve tried. I barely even think about laundry any more because it’s just so automatic.
Ready?
I do a load of laundry every day.
I know, I know. Why would anyone subject themselves to that torture on a daily basis?
When I was a young adult, my laundry system was basically non-existent. I did laundry either when the basket was overflowing, or when I had nothing to wear. You can get away with that “system” if you have only one or two people to do laundry for.
Then one day a friend told me that she read somewhere that you’re supposed to do laundry every night. I heard this and thought it was completely crazy. We had never done that in my house growing up, and so the notion was totally foreign to me. I didn’t think much of it for awhile, but soon after that things began to change.
I first started to see the light when I started working as a home health aide. I had exactly two sets of scrubs to wear. I definitely wasn’t going to rewear that grossness, so I had to do laundry at least every other day. If I didn’t, I’d be risking nudity on that third day!
Over time, I began to realize that I really liked not having to look at an overflowing basket of laundry in my room.
I really enjoyed the satisfaction of putting clean PJs I had just taken off that morning into my drawers. I loved never having to think about laundry because it fit right into my routine. It happened practically automatically! Doing a load a day means I don’t ever get overwhelmed by laundry even in the slightest. I absolutely love it.
What are the best laundry tips for working moms?
Laundry is tricky if you work during the day. It takes a long time for the washer and dryer to get through their cycles! It’s also hard to remember to switch the load over to the dryer before it gets sour.
One of my favorite laundry tips for working moms is to use the ‘delay start’ setting on your washer. Throw a load in at night before you go to bed and set it to delay start right before you wake up. If you plan to wake at 6, set the washer to start at 5. Switch it over to the dryer first thing, and you’ll already have a load of laundry done!
If you’re feeling really motivated, get up 15 minutes earlier so you’ll have time to get it all folded and put away before you leave for the day. Talk about having something to brag about to your co-workers.
READ: Use This One Trick For A Home That’s Always Clean And Tidy
How many loads of laundry can you do in one day?
I don’t know! I’ve never pushed the limits on this since I try to do one load a day. Some people swear by having a ‘laundry day’ where they do all of their laundry for the week on one day. But for my family that would be 3-6 loads which is definitely a lot for one day. You definitely can’t afford to forget to switch the load over to the dryer for a few hours with that system!
Laundry Tips To Get Things Under Control
It seems to me that people get overwhelmed with laundry because of how it piles up when it doesn’t get done on a daily basis. People complain about the “mountain” of laundry that they can’t even think about tackling because it’s just too much.
But how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Like I mentioned above, start with just one load. Get it washed, dried and put away before you go to bed. Then do the same thing the next day. Little by little, that huge mountain will be gone, and if you keep it up, you’ll never have to face “Mount Washmore” again.
Another one of my favorite laundry tips is to have less clothes. Have you ever noticed that when you travel, laundry somehow magically becomes less of an issue?
When we’re all home, it seems like the laundry hamper is full of dirty clothes again about 8 seconds after I empty it and start a load of laundry. But when we go on a trip, I might do laundry every third day or so, and it’s never really all that much.
Why is that??
There’s really only one answer: it’s having less clothes. When you pack, you’re only taking a few days worth of clothes. More than that, I’m willing to bet that you only pack clothes that you actually love and wear on a regular basis. There’s no room in your suitcase for those pants that don’t fit quite right but you keep around for those days when you haven’t done laundry in awhile.
When you know you don’t have any extra clothes to wear after a certain number of days of not doing laundry, you’re much more likely to actually do the laundry. So go into your closet, pretend you’re packing for a 7 day trip and pack only the clothes that you love and wear currently. Put everything else away in a box and see if you miss anything. If you don’t notice that it’s gone, it’s time for a trip to the thrift store to make a donation!
How can you make laundry easier to put away?
The real pain of doing laundry isn’t the actual washing and drying. That part is pretty easy if you think about it – the machine does all the work for you! The tough part is getting the motivation to fold and put away.
Folding and putting away becomes easier when you sort laundry by type rather than by color or when you put everything in together.
For example, do you and your husband’s laundry as a load one day. Folding will become much easier because there won’t be nearly as many types of laundry to sort, and you’ll only need to visit one room of the house when you put away. My favorite laundry day is the day I wash the towels, because it’s so easy to fold and put them away!
For your kids, have a laundry hamper in their room and designate a day of the week as their laundry day. Have them help you fold and then put away their own clothes. Kids as young as 2 can do this with help, so don’t say your kids aren’t old enough! Doing chores helps kids learn responsibility and builds their confidence, so you definitely should not feel guilty for having them “work.”
What is a good laundry schedule?
A good laundry schedule is the one that works for you! I love the idea of assigning a type of laundry to each day. It takes the thinking out of getting laundry done, and makes a lot of the difficult things about laundry simpler.
It could work something like this:
Monday: Towels
Tuesday: Cloth diapers
Wednesday: Kid’s clothes
Thursday: Sheets
Friday: Cloth diapers
Saturday: Grown-up’s clothes
Look at that, you get all of Sunday off from laundry, even if you choose to cloth diaper! If you have older kids who can do laundry independently, you could assign a certain day, or part of a day, for them to get their laundry done when the washer is free.
Try hanging this printable laundry schedule in your laundry room to keep your family on the same page about when it’s their laundry day!
Why do you fold laundry?
Folding laundry is such a pain, isn’t it? I actually don’t fold my kid’s laundry. At this point their clothes are just way too small to bother with it! I either hang it up on hangers in their closet or just toss right into the drawers. Their clothes don’t seem to get wrinkled the way that adult clothes would if they stayed crumpled up, so I just save myself the trouble.
But for the rest of the types of laundry, there’s lots of reasons to get it folded. It keeps it from getting all wrinkled. And it’s just so much more lovely to look at a drawer full of nicely folded laundry than a drawer with clothes haphazardly stuffed in. I love to roll my towels up and put them on a shelf in the bathroom, it makes me feel like I’m at a fancy hotel, haha!
What are your best laundry tips?
Whether you use my laundry tips or not, you can definitely find a system to help laundry be less overwhelming for you. You don’t have to live your whole life in a losing battle against laundry. This is something you can overcome, but it’s not going to go away unless you do something about it! You’ve got this.
Don’t forget to share your laundry tips with me in the comments!
Melinda worked with children for years in a professional setting before becoming a full-time stay at home mom. She currently has three young children, and enjoys sharing tips and ideas about parenting and how to manage a home with excellence. She’s been featured on Heathline and Her View From Home.
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