Do you have problems with laundry?

I hate doing laundry.

I tell myself it’s because I have a 2 story home and my laundry room is in the basement and it’s ugly down there, but that’s not true.

My last house was a 2 story but it had a first floor laundry with a back door and a view of the backyard and I still had issues getting the laundry done.

And you know, when I do get around to doing laundry, I don’t do it the “right” way.

I think my whole family lives out of laundry baskets. We’re lucky if they make it upstairs.

But you know what?

That’s OK.

As long as we have clean clothes and towels, it’s just fine. No stresses here. I’ve got plenty of other things to stress about to be worried about laundry.

That being said, there’s nothing wrong with making things easier, simpler.

Here are my ideas for simplifying laundry:

• You know I’m going to start with what has become sort of a theme to this series: reduce what you have. If you have less clothing, you will have less to wash. I used to think that we needed a clean towel for every person in our family for a week. 4 people x 7 days = 28 towels. Seems a bit much.
• Use good judgement before declaring things “dirty”. We use our towels twice before laundering. Clothing that was worn for a few hours gets aired out and put back in the closet.
• Think of laundry every time you buy a piece of clothing. Does it need special care? Are you willing to do it?
• Teach your kids to do their own laundry. Mine started out just doing towels once a week when they were in elementary school.
• Hang everything. I learned long ago that a dresser or chest of drawers was a mess waiting to happen. If you’ve got a pile of clothes folded and placed on top of one another, someone is going to go looking for just that right t-shirt and make a mess. We hang everything except socks and underwear.
• Make a habit of starting a load each morning, and if you can’t get to it sooner, make putting it in the dryer a habit after dinner. Hopefully you can use TV time to fold.
• I use large mesh bags rather than laundry baskets. I find them easier to carry.
• I do several smaller loads rather than large ones. I find it less overwhelming. My husband and son prefer the jumbo sized, do them less often kind. Whatever works.
• I stopped separating whites from colors a long time ago. The extra whitening thing wasn’t that important to me.

How about you?

Have you got the laundry monster tamed?