Laundry is a never-ending, annoying disturbance that just refuses to go away. It's like a sink full of dirty dishes. The minute you turn away from an empty sink, there are dirty dishes back in it again. Except with dirty clothes, it's worse, because as the weekends come and go and the higher the piles get, the less clothes you have. At least with dishes, you could use paper plates or opt to go out. You can't really do that with clothes. Unless you have the cash to keep buying new outfits every time your laundry is overwhelmingly full.
So I've learned a few things, and a few things my fellow bloggers have taught me along the way. So I'd like to share them with you.
Endless Laundry Tips:
1. Not just weekends
I've learned to do my laundry during the week. Yes, that means from monday on. Even though I was so used to doing laundry on the weekends, this was a habit I was actually quite willing to break. It just made sense. I know there are tons of different people out there, and some like to wait till it has all piled up, but I'm really the kind of person that likes to clean-as-you-go instead (much like those dishes). So this was a notion that made sense to me, and I'm liking it. I started the practice of doing my laundry during the week while I was working, and obviously it's much simpler now that I'm home, but I was still able to do it. I'd rather use my weekends to enjoy my family than stress over sorting and folding and all that extra jazz.
2. Get to it right away
Here's what usually happens : a pile of dirty clothes transforms into a pile of clean clothes. Yes a pile of unfolded, yet clean clothes. Why? Because I'd drag the basket up, turn it over on the bed so I could go go back downstairs and have the basket ready for my next set of clothes. Repeat said process, and then by the end of the day the entire pile would have to move from the bed to the floor to make room for us to sleep. Then after a day or two would go by, I'd begrudgingly make the effort to put those wrinkly clothes in it's proper place.
Now I figured I would try out this new idea to do everything right away (nope, I'm not 100% there yet, but almost...). As soon as those clean clothes are in my room, I fold them. And as soon as they are folded, I put them away. It has really been such a time saver! I didn't realize what those purposeful actions would result in, and yes my natural self does try and rear it's ugly head by convincing me to leave it until another time with that obvious statement "well they are really not going anywhere" but I am standing firm and reminding my self each time that doing it right away really does make me a happier camper. It's done and then there's more space on my floor and there is definitley a lot less stress to deal with.
3. Schedule
This might be the new thing I try to do that I have been seeing posts from all those great launderers out there who are blogging: set up a laundry schedule. I'm thinking it would sort of look like this: Monday : whites. Tuesday : Kids Wednesday : Bedding {or break}, etc.
You know me and my lists and schedules and lists.
This just might add that extra level of organization to the oh-so-wonderful, endless task of laundry =)
