Life Simplified: Laundry Day

For those who don’t know me…….I am NOT a big fan of doing laundry.  Don’t get me wrong , it gets done in our house because I don’t like wearing dirty clothes but doing laundry everyday is almost like torture to me.   Before discovering a system that worked for our household I would delay doing laundry until the last possible moment (ie…someone was out of underwear) then do a huge batch.  The laundry would then sit on the guest bed waiting to be folded and put away.  Many times if you wanted to wear a certain shirt or were looking for clean underwear you had to dig through a massive pile in search for an item.

Thankfully, we had a season in our life that forced me to get organized in the laundry department as well as other areas.  Several years ago my husband took a contract position in a town an hour and half away from our home.  Since the girls were young and not yet in school the entire family commuted with him on the contract.  The company gave him an allowance for an apartment and we were able to find one less then the amount we were given so we could save a little bit extra.  A couple of the downsides to the apartment being less expensive is that it was tiny and it didn’t have a washer and dryer hookup.  Since we came “home” on the weekends it wasn’t that big of a deal, however, that meant we had to keep track of groceries in two houses plus carting laundry back and forth every week.  During this season in our marriage I learned a lot about organizing and planning especially with living in two places at one time, an apartment during the week and at home on the weekends.  There were several benefits to our family doing laundry only once a week:

• Less Stress for Mom because once laundry was completed on Saturday it was done for an entire week.
• More Cost Efficient as far energy, water, and laundry soap.
• Only 4 Loads of Laundry per week (on a typical week we do 4 full loads of laundry for an entire week:  1 – Sheets & Towels, 2 – Light Clothes, 3 – Dark Clothes, 4 – Whites)
• Saves Time when I do everything all from start to finish in one day.  The laundry gets washed throughout the day and for about an hour in the evening I take the time to fold, hang up and put away the items.
• Happy Family – no more digging through piles of clean laundry on the bed looking for underwear or a shirt, etc…. everything is cleaned, put away and ready to be worn.
• Cleaner Home when the piles of laundry are no longer stacked on our guest room bed or in front of the washing machine our home is neater.
• Items are Pre-Treated prior to being put in the laundry basket instead of trying to remember which ones to spray when I am putting them into the wash machine.
• Organized System – having a specific day and task to accomplish enables me to get it done for the week and move onto the other tasks that demand my time and attention

On the weekend we had to get the laundry done in order to have clothes to wear for the next week so it was a great motivator.   Even though that was several years I still do all our laundry in one day.  I no longer have to get it done on the weekends so currently laundry days are Monday’s at our house.   Everything is washed, folded and put away all in one day.  Since starting this organizational task it has allowed additional freedom in my week plus it has been a blessing to my family.  I no longer dread doing laundry because I know it will be done completely on “laundry day” and I will not have to think about it again until next week.  My family no longer has to dig through piles of clothes looking for something to wear.  It was a win-win situation for everyone.

Even though that season in our life was difficult balancing the two households looking back on it I realize how many rich blessings and memories were created during that time as well.  It is during the times of stretching and change in our family when we discover new ways to make life more enjoyable for ourselves as well as those around us.  Having the opportunity to look at our organizational system from a different perspective may be all it takes to make it more efficient.

Do you like doing laundry?  What works for one family may not work for another.  What are ways you use to help make your time doing laundry more efficient?

Photo by Jon Yu