You are not the only person to be overwhelmed with your laundry. You are not the only person to have terrible fights with your family over laundry. You are not the only person who would rather sort out Afghanistan than your whites from your colors. You are not the only one. Part of the reason people have such trouble with their laundry is that they have too many clothes. Then they get married to someone else with too many clothes. Then they buy each other more clothes for Christmas and then they have babies and their babies have too many clothes as well. I am not judging! My dogs have clothes.
But there is a way to make peace with your laundry. I am going to tell you my system. Please understand that there are other systems that work also, although mine is the best, of course. There are five parts to laundry, and it is important to understand this as you will see. They are: sort, wash, dry, fold and put away. And now for my system…Every morning, I sort out one load of laundry. Sorting is rather personal. People have different ideas about what to wash together and separately, and that’s fine. For myself, I have dark colors, light colors and whites. I usually do sheets and towels separately. So I take my load of laundry and put it in the washer in the morning as I am getting ready. When I get home, I put the load in the dryer, and then I fold them and put them away that evening. It’s just one load, so it really doesn’t take long at all. I do not do all my laundry in one day. I just do it every day and I keep up with it that way. It’s just one load every day and that way it’s not a ridiculous amount. It’s also a good time to decide to get rid of clothes you aren’t going to wear anymore. I always have a bag in my closet for clothes I am going to take to Goodwill, and when it’s full, I just drop it by when I am out doing other errands.
The two main points I would like to convey is that there are five parts to doing laundry, and laundry is never done, although the load you are currently working on is considered done when it is all put away. It is not done when it is in the dryer. It is not done when it is in a pile on the couch. It is not done when it is folded and is still on the couch. It is not done if it is folded and it is still in the laundry room. There will always be more laundry in the laundry basket though. For those of you who have way more than seven loads of laundry to do in a week, you can decide to do more, or you can seriously consider limiting the amount of clothes and linens in your household. Personally, I do not think everyone needs ten pairs of jeans, 35 T-shirts, etc. But now my dogs are a different story.