How to Conquer the Laundry Pile: 10 Simple Tips
Feeling overwhelmed by the laundry? You are not alone! Today I am going to teach you how to keep up with the laundry and tackle that laundry pile once and for all!
Just the thought of another weekend spent doing laundry is enough to make you look forward to Monday.
If you dread doing laundry, you will definitely want to check out the tips below to see how you can simplify and streamline the process.
Follow along to see that laundry doesn’t have to take up all of your free time.
10 Tips to Prevent Piles of Laundry from Taking Over
Growing up, I wasn’t allowed to do laundry…or load the dishwasher.
In fact, I wasn’t allowed to do many typical household tasks that fall under the category of “chores” for most kids.
My mom had a particular type of OCD that required her to be in control of everything.
She was so afraid that we would do something wrong that she found it easier just to do it all herself.
The result was that I had zero homemaking experience when I became a wife, mother and CEO of a household.
This required that I build my skills from the ground up.
On the upside, I didn’t have any ingrained habits to break.
As our family grew and the amount of clothing increased, I began to feel constantly overwhelmed by laundry and started to avoid it.
That wasn’t good because the laundry began to pile up – which only created more stress…and a MOUNTAIN OF LAUNDRY!
As a busy, working mom, I didn’t want to spend my weekends doing laundry.
I wanted to spend that time having fun with my family or doing something I love (which is not laundry).
Through trial and error, I was able to discover methods that make the process streamlined and easy. I am sharing these genius laundry tips with you today!
How to Keep up on the Laundry
We all love having our clothes clean and ready to wear.
There’s nothing worse during the rush to get ready in the morning than realizing the pants you had planned to wear are in the hamper…UGH!
Laundry can also feel like a never-ending task depending on your current routine and how many people are in your family.
When you loathe doing laundry it’s easy to put it off until it’s too late and you’ve got mountains of clothes, towels, and bedding to wash.
The best strategies that I have found make doing laundry a simple process that doesn’t take up an entire day.
Here are my favorite tips and tricks:
1. Declutter Your Clothes
The more clothing you have, the longer you can go without washing them.
Before I began decluttering my closet and using a capsule wardrobe, I could go a couple of weeks without running out of stuff to wear (even socks and undies).
When you have fewer clothes, you will stay on top of the laundry because if you don’t, you won’t have anything to wear.
Action Step: Quickly go through your closet and dressers to donate anything that doesn’t fit well, or that you don’t love wearing.
RELATED POST: How to Declutter your Closet; For Real This Time!
2. Do (some) Laundry During the Week
Saving all the laundry for the weekend is no fun.
It’s easy to get busy doing something else or come up with plans to do anything else.
Instead, toss in a load when you can during the week.
For me, that is in the evening when I get home from work.
This means I can have a load washed before I start dinner.
One of my favorite new strategies is to get a load or two done on Friday night. It’s just so nice going into the weekend with most (or all) of the laundry done.
That’s when I toss it in the dryer, so that it’s done when we finish our meal.
We tend to hang most of our clothing, so it just takes a few minutes to put the laundry away and have one less load to do on the weekend!
I have friends who wake up early and they are able to get a load washed and dried before heading out to work.
Getting all or some of the laundry done during the week makes the weekends more fun to look forward to.
Start a Load Before Running Errands
Let’s say you are headed out the door to go grocery shopping or head out to an appointment.
Start a load of laundry before you leave!
Then it’s ready to pop in the dryer when you return. This method saves a ton of time in the long run.
Use Mesh Bags to Save Time Sorting
The one part of laundry that I absolutely despise is sorting socks and underwear.
I actually got to the point where I would do all of the laundry – except that part.
I would put them all in a big basket and make everyone find their own stuff to put away…he he he 😉
Then I saw a tip to use mesh laundry bags….ummm… Genius!
Each family member has their own and all of their small items stay together in the wash.
You can even quickly do a load by grabbing each family member’s bag and washing them all together without them getting all jumbled together.
The best part is that each family member then receives their own bag to fold and put away.
Use the Quick Wash Setting
Wondering how you can get laundry done faster?
We bought a new high efficiency washer last year and I was amazed at how long it took to wash a load of clothes.
For the most part, my clothes and my husband’s clothes are not actually “dirty”. We both have indoor jobs that allow us to stay pretty clean.
The same goes for my oldest child. She hates getting messy.
I have found that the quick wash setting does a great job of cleaning the clothes in a short amount of time.
Try it on your washer to see if the setting works for you too!
Set the timer on your phone
Nothing wastes more time than having to wash a load of laundry twice.
If you forget that you have a load in the washer, it can get all musty smelling, which is no good.
The only way to get it out is to wash them again. Not even a dryer sheet can cover up the smell.
Instead, set a timer on your phone so that you can switch it over to the dryer ASAP.
This will allow you to get another load into the wash right away and prevent the piles of laundry from backing up.
Hang Most of Your Clothes
Remember earlier when I said that I hated dealing with socks?
Well, the other part about laundry that I don’t enjoy is folding. That is one of the main reasons I don’t use the KonMari Method.
Instead, I bring a stack of hangers with me into the laundry room and hang almost everything up right then and there.
It’s so much faster than folding and I hardly ever have to iron anything.
Related Post: How to Keep Your Drawers Organized Without Folding
Wash Less Frequently
One of the fastest growing piles of laundry in our home used to be towels.
Each time someone took a bath, shower, or dried off a dish, they would throw the towel right in the hamper.
Eventually, we decluttered our towels until we only had two towels per person.
This was the perfect number to last one week. Instead of washing after each use, we use them for 2-3 days before washing. If you hang them to dry overnight, they are always ready to go the next day.
Now I do the same thing with our jeans, sweaters, and sweatshirts.
As long as they are not physically dirty, we get two to three wears out of them before they get washed.
Only Buy Colored Clothes for Kids
Honestly, this is a life-changer that I stumbled upon by accident that is pure genius!
I used to sort my kid’s clothes by first combining their hampers together, then sorting the darks and lights.
Then I would have to re-sort when the loads were done. I didn’t like this method because it added extra steps and took up too much time.
Eventually, I decided that keeping light-colored kids’ clothing clean was just too much of a chore.
Now, we just buy colored clothing that can all be tossed in together.
No more sorting is required, and we don’t have to worry about the accidental red shirt getting put in with the whites.
Related Post: How to Create a Kids Capsule Wardrobe with Primary.com
Avoid High Maintenance Fabrics
If you know that after you do the laundry, you are going to have to do the ironing, you are probably going to avoid getting started in the first place.
If you avoid doing laundry, those piles will start to build up again.
Instead, be smart about the types of fabrics that you buy.
I stick with brands and fabrics for my family that I know are wash and wear.
No ironing required!
This way, I know that as soon as the clothes come out of the dryer and I hang them up, my job is done. This makes it easy to stay motivated to keep on top of the laundry each week.
Looking for more tips to help you tackle Laundry Mountain? Check out this video:
More Laundry Tips and Tricks:
Top 10 Tips to Keep Up on the Laundry
Love it!! But my problem is not the washing and drying machines. Its the piles of clean laundry that add up and don’t get put away and then we all sift through it for underwear and such for weeks on end as I keep adding more clean clothes. I do a load a day with 5 kids, 7 people in the house. But seriously what are the tricks to getting those clothes put away? Its so sad.
The tricks to get the clothes put away are 1)declutter your clothes so you don’t have as much to put away and 2) hang your clothes directly out of the dryer. Don’t take them out and set them down in a pile. Stand at the dryer and hang them or fold them, then put them away. If you do that every time you won’t have a pile of clean clothes lying around.
I wash my daughters clothes all together using a dye catching sheet if necessary, then my son’s the same way. That way when I’m folding them and putting away I go right to their rooms to do so. No more running around the house with different people’s clothes. Also I wash mine separately from my husband’s because I don’t get very dirty in my office job so I can do quicker loads than his clothes that generally get filthy at his construction job.