Simplify Your Laundry Schedule With These Must Know Tips
Do you need a to simplify your laundry schedule, so that doing laundry doesn’t suck so much? Is ironing not on your list of your favorite things? Are the clothes piles spilling over your hampers? Then this post is for you! Here is how to simplify your laundry schedule with bonus tips and tricks.
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Why Have a Simplified Laundry Schedule?
Why do you need to simplify your laundry schedule? Because it can help you get through all the stages of your “laundry life” without pulling your hair out. Following these laundry rules and figuring out your specific laundry needs will help you make a customized schedule that works in your home.
I won’t be telling you to do laundry like I do, on the days I do. The purpose of this post is to teach you:
- First, how to figure out what your family’s laundry needs are.
- Second, how to simplify those needs so you can figure out what laundry schedule works best in your home.
I will give you examples of what has worked for my family, but only so you can more easily identify your needs and process them.
I Don’t Iron!
Even though I am known in my family for being the perfectionist, and the clean freak, I hate ironing! I hate it with a passion. It is so time consuming to me, and time is just not something I have in spades.
This is why even a neat freak needs to simplify her laundry schedule. When I stay on schedule and follow my laundry “rules” (tips and tricks), it makes it so ironing is obsolete.
In our house we have had all kinds of different laundry situations through the years:
- I have had multiple smelly teen boys when we did foster care.
- There are currently two dogs who we bathe at home that produce wet dog smelling towels.
- I use reusable cloths for dishes and cleaning.
- And I have a husband who wears both regular clothes and uniforms multiple days a week.
With all of these challenges, I have still been able to keep closets and drawers full of clean clothes without overflowing hampers.
Why One Size Fits All Doesn’t Work For a Laundry Schedule
I am sure the laundry issues in your home are not exactly the same as the laundry issues in mine. This is why those print off, one size fits all laundry schedules usually don’t work for most people.
Your laundry issues, number of people and pets in your family, and even the hours you are at work and not home will all affect the way your laundry schedule should be set up. So just because someone else on the internet says you should have all day Saturday to do laundry, that doesn’t make it true.
Maybe in your home, your kids all do their own laundry? Or, in some homes just mom does because of scheduling needs. This is all okay. You need to figure out what works for your family, and know that is fine.
Figure Out Your Needs
The first and most important step is to figure out your homes laundry needs. Here are some questions to ask yourself.
- Will you need separate laundry times for multiple people?
- Are you going to be the only one doing laundry?
- How often are you going to wash sheets or towels in your home?
- Does someone need certain clothes on a specific days of the week?
- What days of the week do you have more time to finish loads of laundry?
Write all of these things down so you can see them together as you figure things out. For doing task like this, I have started to use The RocketBook. It is a book with reusable pages that can be written on with pens, yet erased and changed when necessary.
And they did not sponsor this post, I just find it very helpful in situations like this, where list and schedules will need to be modified and changed.
Now combine your needs with your time allowances and figure out what will work best for you and set your laundry schedule. Here is the great thing about using a simplified, custom schedule…if you figure out something is not working, modify it! Nothing has to be set in stone.
Making “Rules” that Help Your Simplified Laundry Schedule Succeed (Our Tips and Tricks)
I really don’t have a schedule set in stone, my regular daily schedule is too erratic and demanding. Instead my schedule is my set of rules.
You can run your laundry room in the same way, or with a set schedule. Again, this is about keeping up with your laundry and making it work for you.
Like I stated above, I do not like to iron. If my sons or hubby really need a pressed shirt for a special event, I make an exception. But truthfully, the last time I got out my iron was over two months ago. I am able to do this because of my number one rule.
Rule 1. Do not start a load of laundry unless it can be completed in one day!
And I mean all of it: washed, dried, folded/hung up, and put away. This, and not overloading your washer and dryer are how you avoid the iron and still look put together. When clothes are properly folded or hung up right as the dryer stops they will be less wrinkled.
This is also how you avoid being overwhelmed by half finished laundry. I have had friends that end up with piles of clean laundry on floors for so long, they eventually ended up washing it again because they didn’t know if dirty stuff had been mixed in.
Or worse yet, you wash the clothes, but end up so busy that you forget to put them in the dryer. You end up with funky, spoiled, smelly clothes that have to be re-washed again.
So again, do not start laundry unless you have the time to do a complete load from start to finish. It really makes for less work and time consumed in the long run when you don’t have to re-do work you already did, or add ironing.
Rule 2. Have Less Clothing
I know this one sounds like it’s easier said than done, but it really can make a huge difference in your laundry loads. If you have less clothes, you somehow find the time to do laundry more frequently, and you:
- don’t end up with piles and piles of dirty clothes
- don’t have overloaded loads that don’t get clean and are really wrinkled
Plus people that have streamlined wardrobes tend to wear things that are similar in color, which means you won’t spend as much time separating and washing multiple loads of different colors. It is a great, easy way to simplify your laundry schedule.
If you need help simplifying your wardrobes you should definitely check out How I Cut My Wardrobe in Half and Why You Have Too Many Clothes and What To Do About It.
Rule 3. Think About Making Towels and Bedding the Same Color
I have talked about this before in two previous blog post, 10 Manageable Tips for a Tidy Home and referenced it again in a post about How to Keep Your White Laundry White.
I talk about it so much, because it really has made a big difference in our “laundry lives”. In my home I have made most of our sheets and towels white. This means stuff can be combined in loads. I can easily get bedding and towels done in one day.
It also makes it easier to throw in a quickly needed item. I tend to wash our pillow cases more frequently than our sheets. My husband has a shaved head, so there is no hair to absorb any oil. His pillow case gets dirty fast.
Because our cases are white, I can pull them off really quick and throw them in any white load of laundry. This means we have clean pillow cases multiple times a week without extra loads needing to be done.
The one exception I have made to this rule is with hand towels. Even with all my tricks I use to keep our white laundry looking fresh, hand towels are just too hard to keep pristine.
But our dark loads are usually already full because of my husbands uniforms, so I knew I didn’t want dark towels. I settled on beige hand towels. And because I use acne medication, I have to have hand towels that are also color fast.
These hand towels from Amazon have been fantastic. They don’t bleach out and turn pink, and they also don’t get dingy looking like white does. Bonus, they are small and light enough to throw into any of my light color loads.
Rule 4. Rules Are Made to be Broken in Your Simplified Laundry Schedule
My last rule, is that there are always exceptions to the rules…and that is okay!
We bathe our dogs at home, and with the weather here in Utah, this usually can not happen on a set day. In winter we usually have to pick the warmest day of the week when my husband isn’t working (our two bigger K9’s require a “team effort”).
When this happens, I know I will be doing a load of towels, even if it isn’t our normal bedding and towel day. Our dogs are large and it takes multiple towels each to get them dry. And by the time we are done, those towels are covered in dog hair, wet dog smell, and soaked. So they will need to be washed that day.
Now, while I will be washing towels on a non-towel day, I still revert to my #1 rule, and ask myself if I will have time to do the towels from start to finish that day. If I can’t, then the dogs are going to have to wait until the next warm day.
You Can Do It!
While laundry can sometimes feel like a never ending time suck, it doesn’t have to be all consuming. By making some observations, simplifying a few things, and making some rules for yourself you really can get your laundry routine in check.
