How a Professional Organizer Stays on Top of the Never Ending Family Laundry Cycle
Why Laundry Was the Chore I Had to Systemize
The dreaded constants- dishes and laundry. They really never end! In my household, my husband and I have decided to split these chores up. At the end of the day, he’s responsible for the dishes getting done. Meaning, dishwasher loaded and started, counters cleaned, and hand-washed dishes done before he goes to sleep. (If this isn’t done it’s actual chaos in the morning!) Me? I get the lovely task of wrangling and staying on top of our family’s laundry system. Without my attention, we would have dirty clothes covering every surface of this house and never a sock to be found!
Through the years, in tandem with my extreme desire to make everything as minimal as possible 😂, I’ve developed a foolproof (not joking!) laundry system. Our family is comprised of two working adults and two toddler children who we force to be outside most of the time (lol). There are MANY dirty clothes and not a ton of space to work with. If you’re struggling to get ahead of and keep your family’s laundry at bay, this read is for you!
Start Your Laundry System Where Clothes Come Off
This entire laundry system actually doesn’t even start in the laundry room! To make sure you are set up for success you need laundry baskets in the areas of your home where clothes either often come off and/or there are frequent clothes changes happening. These baskets don’t need to look like traditional laundry baskets, the only need to be some sort of larger container that collects clothes. (I love scoping Home Goods for cute laundry vessels!) The purpose of these baskets is for you to easily be able to collect the clothes that usually pile up in these spaces.
Traditionally, the rooms that people are getting dresses and undressed in are bedrooms and bathrooms. It is common to put laundry baskets here! But if you are raising small humans you know that there are also other, less common, areas of the home that tend to collect dirty laundry. In my home we have laundry baskets (again, these don’t actually look like laundry baskets; their sizes are space dependent and they are actually cute baskets!) in the primary bathroom, our toddlers’ rooms, the toddlers’ bathroom, AND also right by the front door 😂.
Why by the front door? WELL, our kitchen is close to our entryway. My youngest is still not a pro at eating food, so we often need to change her clothes after mealtimes! The basket close to the kitchen makes it easy for me to throw a dirty onesie into a basket that’s designated to go downstairs, where the laundry room is. Also, the girls often get dirty after playing outside. The laundry basket, again, provides us with a simple laundry system that keeps clothes going to where they need to go. THANK YOU to my “downstairs” basket!
Set Up the Tools That Make the Laundry System Work
Once you’ve established the rooms and/or spaces of your home that are most needed to “catch” your dirty laundry, get those areas set up with baskets. In addition, you’ll also need ONE (seriously, only one!) traditional laundry basket, which we’ll call the “floating basket”, ready for this laundry system. I use this one that I’ve had for eons but anything like it will work. It will primarily exist in your laundry room and sometimes near the bedrooms. Something else you’ll need, if you don’t have it yet, is somewhere to hang dry laundry. This should be in the laundry room or nearby, if you’re short on space. Check this article out for space-saving laundry drying tips. Me? I use my pup’s dog crate to dry clothes on. Since clothes lay flat on it, and there’s so much air passing around them, they dry so fast!
My Tested (and Recommended) Laundry Process- Step by Step
Okay, so now you’ve got your spaces set up with the necessary supplies. Congrats! Do you have a designated laundry person? If so, proceed! If you are going to be sharing laundry duties with a trusted partner, study on the steps below and designate as needed. Now you just need to follow through on the actual laundry system itself. Here’s how it works:
- Collect clothes as they get dirty. End of the day? When the baby dumps orange juice all over herself? When the toddler rolls in mud? Straight into the nearest laundry basket.
- Once a couple days go by, check the total amount of clothes in all of the baskets. You want each basket to be about half or a bit under half full. If each laundry basket is full, you’ve waited too long. (It’ll be fine but just take longer to get through it all!)
- If you deem that the clothes are ready to be laundered, you’re now ready to consolidate all the dirty laundry. Go grab that floating, traditional laundry basket. Pour each of the room-specific laundry baskets, with dirty clothes, into the floating basket. Then, bring the full floating basket down to the laundry room.
- *Important note: You cannot collect dirty laundry in the floating basket unless it is empty. Once your laundry system is in full effect, this means that you cannot collect dirty laundry until you have collect, folded, and put away clean clothes. This is what, ultimately, keeps your laundry cycle moving forward.
- Now that your floating basket is waiting for you in the laundry room, you can treat your dirty laundry (here’s my go to stain remover) and sort clothes.
- To sort clothes, I’ll grab an item from the floating basket, check it for stains (the kids’ clothes ALWAYS have stains), spray as needed, and then place into a pile of like items. I group based on dryer vs air dry, fabric type, dry time, etc. But you group however you please! Each grouping/pile is a load. If some groupings are smallish, consider combining them with another, also on the smaller side, group.
- I like to keep one or two bins down here for sorting purposes, especially for the toddlers’ clothes since they are small. I think using bins for sorting is personal preference and also space dependent!
- Once your preferred amount of time has passed for clothes to absorb their stain remover (lol) you may proceed with the wash dry cycles. Try to keep groups moving in and out of the washer and dryer consistently until you get through all of your piles. Always collect your clean clothes right back into the floating basket. You do not need to fold or deal with any of these clothes until you have gone through your all of your wash/dry cycles for this laundry session!
- If you have an air-dry only group, save that for last so you can fold all of your dryer clothes while waiting for them.
- Once all the laundry from your current session (session=the full floating basket you brought to the laundry room) is clean and recollected into your floating basket, it’s time to organize them in order to go back into their respective closets. Some people like to fold clothes (me!) while others prefer to stuff them into drawers. Do whatever works for you, so that you can find your clean clothes when you need them!
- If you are a folder, bring your floating basket somewhere with some space and fold all the clothes into categories. Reload folded clothes back into the floating basket
- If you are a stuffer, bring your floating basket somewhere with some space and categorize the clothes either by person or closet. Then, place the generally categorized, clean clothes back into the floating basket.
- Now, put the clothes away! Bring the floating basket back to the bedroom closets, or where ever they are stored, and put them where they belong. The goal is the have an empty floating basket!
- Rinse and repeat!!! 🥁
The Key to Making This Laundry System Stick
And there you have it! A laundry system that is so tight, so locked in, that the only way it could let you down is if you don’t keep it going! I think the only thing that would solve that problem is by purchasing a laundry robot of some sorts? If you know where I could acquire one of those I’m all ears!
For real, though, as long as you are consolidating all dirty laundry before each laundry basket gets too full then you’ll easily be able to keep up with your laundry cycle. If you do end up waiting a little too long, it’s no big deal! What will happen is that the time to do the subsequent steps will take longer. Longer to spray and sort clothes, longer to get through all of your washer and dryer loads, longer to organize all the clean clothes, and longer to put them away (since there will be so many more to touch). So I do recommend staying on top of your steps if you do have a LOT of dirty clothes to contend with up front!
Making Peace With the Never-Ending Laundry
Staying on top of your laundry is tough (since it doesn’t endddddd) but I’ve found that my approach can make or break my motivation for the chore. First of all, I love listening to my favorite music/podcast/audio book while I’m spraying and sorting clothes. This makes the time go by faster and I’m happier while I’m doing it! I also like to tell myself that I’m lucky I get to care for these clothes, as they are a reminder I have two healthy and active little girls that wear them. I also find satisfaction in caring for the clothing well (always spraying stains and making sure items are washed and dried appropriately) so I don’t need to always buy new clothing as replacements. Kinda like, laundry is a chore but it’s MY chore and I’m going do it the best I can (with the lowest effort needed, lol).
So, do I think everyone needs to follow this professional organizer’s laundry process to the tee in order to live a happy life? Absolutely not! As long as your laundry system meets you and your family’s goals for clothing turnover time and being able to find what you want when you want it, then you’re doing great! But if you find that you are struggling with feeling content about your laundry situation, give this one a try. It just might save your sanity.
