How I Made Laundry Easy on Myself
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In the life of Mom, dirty clothes are inevitable. Believe it or not, laundry is one of my favorite jobs, particularly now that I’ve made it easy on myself! These tricks can help YOU transform your laundry situation as well.
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Laundry is an unavoidable job, unless you’re Martha Stewart who has a decidedly gorgeous laundry room, but who probably doesn’t need to actually do her own laundry. The rest of us do do the laundry, and in some instances it can be a drudge.
After years of struggling to get a handle on the mountain of dirty clothes created by eight people, I finally came up with some systems that have made laundry not only easy, but actually kinda fun!
It’s pretty much my favorite household job. EVER.
This system has been in place now since 2013 when I got so fed up with how our laundry system was failing that I dashed off a lengthy email to my husband — in the middle of his work day! — to communicate my new SOP (standard operating procedure). What was once a hope and dream has actually become a standard operating procedure. Imagine that!
While we sometimes get lax in our system, it’s designed in a way that makes it easy to catch up. It’s worked for over five years now; I’m willing to bet it will work for you, too!
I know your life isn’t exactly like mine — and neither is your laundry room — but I hope these make-laundry-easy strategies will help you think through your own laundry situation and find ways to troubleshoot it so that it’s easy for you, too.
How I Made Laundry Easy on Myself
1. The laundry room is for one purpose only: cleaning.
I was tired of the laundry room becoming this giant holding tank for dirty clothes and linens. It was in a state of chaos 24/7, and I felt like I was always behind.
The change? Dirty laundry does not get stored in the laundry room. It gets stored in bedrooms and bathrooms until someone is ready to wash it.
It took repeating myself 5,432,765 times, but it stuck. Mostly. (I still remind people from time to time.)
Each of the kids’ rooms has a hamper as does each bathroom. If it belongs to you, it goes in your hamper, not the laundry room. Bring it to the laundry room only when you’re ready to wash it.
2. We don’t sort whites and darks.
My mother just about died when I announced this, but I don’t sort colors from whites. I haven’t sorted for years. And guess what? We have not had any white underwear or socks turn pink, so I’m not worrying about it!
Since we don’t sort colors, each bedroom’s tenants can do their week’s wash in one load instead of three. Not only does this save time and effort, but we save on water and soap as well.
3. I don’t sort the kids’ clothes.
Instead of doing combined family loads — I used to do one load a day of everyone’s clothes mixed up — we do loads based on person or bedroom occupants. No longer do I have a huge mountain of dirty clothes to sort into whites, darks, and colors. Nor do I have a huge mountain of clean clothes to fold and sort for each person.
Each bedroom (with two occupants each) has one or two hampers. These clothes usually get washed together and then the pair in each bedroom deal with the folding and sorting.
Sorting within a bedroom is much easier than sorting for the whole household!
4. I don’t wash the kids’ laundry.
The kids do their own laundry. I’m not sure how young you can test this, but we started the process when the girls were 6 and 4. They needed a chair to reach into the washing machine, but they were able to do it. Amen, hallelujah.
I took a Sharpie and drew arrows on the machines to show them what buttons to push. It’s been a learning process, sure, but CAN I TELL YOU HOW FREEING IT IS?! Totally worth defacing my household appliances.
Teaching your children to do their own laundry is a game changer.
5. I buy detergent pods or strips.
Once the kids started doing the laundry, I realized that we needed to step away from the liquid or powder detergent. There was just too much mess and too much detergent getting wasted!
Pro tip: those cups that come with detergent hold more than you need! The manufacturer is counting on you getting lazy and forgetting to measure properly. Don’t get bamboozled!
For awhile I used Dizolve strips, but planning ahead for shipping from Canada was a pain. I now buy All Clear Mighty Pacs from Amazon via Subscribe and Save. I never run out of laundry soap.
While the pre-measured laundry detergent may be a bit more expensive, it’s probably a wash (punny?). The kids were either spilling so much of the liquid or pouring too much. This way, there’s virtually no mess in the laundry room.
6. I made a washing schedule.
Instead of everyone jockeying for position in the laundry room, I created a schedule and wrote it across the front of the washing machine. Currently our schedule looks like this:
- Monday: parents
- Tuesday: FishBoys13 and 15
- Wednesday: emergency
- Thursday: FishBoys 17 and 20
- Friday: sheets and towels
- Saturday: FishChicks9 and 11
- Sunday: emergency
Every person or pair of people has a day, as do the beds and bathrooms. I leave Wednesdays and Sundays open for whoever missed their day or if we have a back up for some reason. It does happen.
In the beginning this system took some reinforcement and getting used to, but it’s been totally worth it!
But what if you only have littles?!
I’ve been thinking about this question: what if you don’t have big kids who can do their own laundry? In other words, what would I have done 14 years ago when everyone was six and under?
- I’d still keep dirty clothes in the bedroom hampers and not in the laundry area.
- I still wouldn’t sort, unless it was a bunch of white onesies that needed bleach after too many blow-outs.
- I’d keep each bedroom’s occupants’ laundry together instead of doing massive family piles that need to be folded and separated.
- I’d still have littles help me. My toddlers loved to put wet clothes in the dryer or fold towels.
- I’d ask my husband to help me more. (I did a lot of things on my own in the old days because I didn’t communicate that I needed help. Neither of us realized how much. Now we know better. FishPapa does a ton of things around the house because he loves us and wants me no to go crazy.)
Doing the wash for a household all by yourself is hard, so don’t knock yourself if your particular situation doesn’t seem “easy”. It’s not easy! It could be a full time job. Therefore it’s one that you can get help for!
Make it easy on yourself and find ways not to do it all on your own.
Do YOU have a tip for making laundry easier?
Originally published October 25, 2015. Updated April 3, 2018.
I love the idea of my kids doing their laundry, but I feel like there is a lot that needs to be hung up to dry to keep them in good condition. There is a picture of a sweater in the pile of clothes in your post. Do you dry sweaters? How do you handle clothes that need to be treated more gently than washing and drying? Thanks!
I don’t really buy my kids clothes that aren’t wash and wear. We have a drying rack and a hanging rod in the laundry room. As they’ve gotten older, they start to care about their clothes in a different way. Well, some of them do.
I do my own laundry, and my kids know not to touch my clothes or my head will spin around. Yes, there is a point of being too helpful, which I guess is a good problem to have!
I’m not good with laundry and am the type the leave a load in the washer for hours. The Declutter 365 site was a game changer for me when she suggested assigning a load per day per person in the household. I can do a load a day! Each kid is assigned a day and there’s no sorting. I wash and they are expected to put it away the same day. It doesn’t always happen, but the onus is on them and not me.
Good for you! Problem solved!
Do you still use detergent pods with slightly bigger kids, smaller loads, and your fancy new washer? I hesitate to buy them because with liquid I can adjust how much detergent per load or type of clothing. I worry about having too much detergent if I have to wash a small load.
We still use pods. The pods are still pretty small for my size family and the loads we typically wash. When I do the week for me and my husband, I sometimes need two pods.
And my people would still spill, regardless of age.
I loved reading this article! It makes me feel a lot better about throwing my clothes all together, which my husband doesn’t like, but it really doesn’t make a difference. I have a 10 year old who does his own laundry. And then a 4, 2, and 1 year old who all help with swapping laundry to the dryer and moving laundry to our couch as our laundry room is nowhere near where the troublesome kids may play. Great read!
Be encouraged! Done is better than perfect. 😉
Great tips listed here. Never heard of laundry pods and strips. Having young ones, I know that they would struggle with the detergent. Mess would be everywhere. I will have to give that one a shot and see how it works out. I will report back after giving it a shot. Thanks for sharing this awesome resource!
This summer with the impending birth of my 5th, I convinced my hubby to try a bin system for my boys’ room. Each of my sons has a bin for short sleeves, shorts, undies and socks, long sleeves/pants, and jammies. This has recently switched over to long sleeves, pants, undies and socks, short sleeves/sweaters, and jammies. My husband really wanted to have the kids put away their own clothes but it always ended in disaster and I just didn’t have time to do it all myself. I thought he was crazy for insisting they do it themselves and he thought it was crazy to put any money in a bin system when they had perfectly good dressers. It’s working great. I can hand my 5 year old a pile and tell him where it goes and it doesn’t end up on the floor. And for some reason, the bins are more likely to be put away than the drawers were to be closed. Now my girls’ dresser drawers are always hanging open so we hope to do bins for them, too. Now the putting away part (hardest for me) is easier.
Yay for a WIN-WIN!
We have a 3-bin laundry sorter in our room. We labeled them darks (mostly hubby’s clothes), whites (includes towels, wash cloths, sheets, etc.), and delicates (mostly mine; delicate seems to help knit shirts stay nicer longer). It’s not pretty but the functionality has won me over! Then the kids have a hamper. I do better getting all the laundry done one day a week right now (often the folding spills over into the next day, but that’s b/c the dryer takes 2x as long as the washer and it backs up), but I love having them pre-sorted by color and mostly by person. I agree that having each load belong mostly to hubby, myself, or kids makes folding and putting away a lot simpler!
This might be slightly OCD, but I have recently started filling up the laundry baskets (with folded clothes) by putting bottom drawer contents in first, then second-from-the-bottom, then third, then top drawer contents on top. I get dizzy easily, and the up/down motion of putting clothes into a dresser is something I avoid, but being able to go straight down the dresser has helped a lot!
Yes, I fold with the underwear and socks last too since they go on top.
I’m not the only one who sorts clothes as I fold them. 🙂
When I fold mine and hubs clothes, I make drawer piles, too. 😉
I grew up in a house of 8 (6 kids, a working dad, and a full-time SAHM). My mother didn’t teach us how to do laundry. She said it was just easier for her to do it…I think she was crazy!! After I got married I had to call my husband at work to ask him how to wash clothes. I was SO embarrassed and vowed to teach my kids how to do laundry as soon as they could handle it. So, at age 7, each of my 3 children were taught how to operate the washing machine and dryer. At the time they were very excited about the skill…now, not so much. They know that folding/hanging and putting away are part of the laundry process, too. (They started folding towels & washcloths around 4, and began folding & putting away their own clothes in kindergarten.) We each have a laundry day and, for the most part, we stick to it. My 12 yo son is also in charge of kitchen and bathroom towels. He gets to watch TV as he folds, so it’s a win-win!! Teaching my kids how to do laundry is one of the best things I’ve ever done (and I think my future daughters-in-law will appreciate it, too!!).
Great job!