It is very helpful to try to create systems in many areas of life, so that we don't have to spend more energy than necessary on the more unpleasant realities of life. Washing dishes, preparing meals, laundry, and housekeeping are all great candidates for systems. Often our systems can get complex and end up controlling us. We stress over the system and dread using it because it takes more time and more energy to do the system "properly." If this is how you feel about any system... it's time to change it. Systems should be simple, streamlined, and tailor-made to help you, not to make your their slave.
Laundry
Today I wanted to share my laundry system. Remember that I am not perfect and what works for me, may not work for you... but hopefully this can give you some ideas on how to streamline your own system and simplify things to make them work for you.
Collection
With 8 people currently in the house, we generate a lot of laundry. Currently 15-20 loads per week, including cloth diapers. The first step in our laundry system is to collect the dirty laundry. We use several tools for collection, stationed in key locations throughout the house.
The main laundry collector is a flexible laundry basket in the kids' bathroom. This hamper collects all dirty kids' clothes (assuming they put them in the hamper and not stuff them in a corner of their closet, but thanks to their nearly empty rooms, it's always easy to know when they've done this), along with dirty bath towels, soiled bedding, and most cleaning rags.
The next collection location includes two Ikea hampers placed in the master bedroom closet. One white, and one black. Obviously, the white hamper is for the whites. The black hamper collects the rest including non-white adult clothing and master bathroom towels.
Next we have a waterproof wet-bag for collecting dirty cloth diapers, as well as soiled clothing from potty-training attempts. I will admit that we recently switched back to cloth diapers, and we haven't found an ideal location for the diaper area yet, so the wet-bag is currently floating around the house, which is less than ideal. When I found it to take this picture it was residing on the toddler bed in the master bedroom.
Finally, we have a cleaning bucket in the garage next to the washing machine. This bucket collects all really nasty kitchen towels, rags, and sponges as well as dirty socks. For some reason, probably thanks to me, my children don't generally like wearing socks in the house. So, when they take off their shoes and put them away, they also take off their socks and put them in the bucket before coming in the house. I'd rather have my kids go through 2-3 pairs of socks in a given day, than have socks stuffed into couches, or thrown behind doors which they did before we created this portion of the system.
Cleaning
We typically wash 2-3 loads of laundry per day, or as often as we generate a full load of laundry. We select which loads need to be washed based on how full each hamper is. Typically adult whites and darks each get washed at least once a week, sometimes twice, the diapers get washed 3-4 times per week, and the rest of the loads come from the kids hamper. I don't like to be a slave to the system, so rather than rush to the garage (I don't have a laundry room... someday, maybe) every time a load finishes, laundry is moved immediately after each meal, as part of our after meal clean-up. Assuming we have 4 meals a day (breakfast, lunch, snack & dinner), we can comfortably run 3 loads through the washer, and leave one load in the dryer overnight. I don't stress over wrinkles, especially since the last load of the day is usually diapers, but I can also pull the last load out of the dryer before I go to bed if I need to. Even if we miss snack, or eat out of the house for a meal (such as lunch at our homeschool group), we can wash 2 loads leaving one in the dryer overnight. If necessary, we will often move loads when we arrive home from such an outing, just so we don't get behind.
The important thing to remember here is that our washers & dryers are like servants. We are blessed to have them in our homes, and they are specifically meant to make our lives easier. If you didn't have a washer/dryer, but instead had a paid servant to do your laundry, would you want that servant sitting around doing nothing if there was work to be done? As a manager of our home, it is our job to manage our servants and make sure they do the work they were made for. If there is a full load of laundry anywhere in the house, the machine's can be running. If you don't want to keep things in the washer overnight, that's understandable. If you prefer not to leave things in the dryer overnight, don't start a load too late in the day. But keep the machines working for you.
To keep things simple, I don't sort. *gasp* Adult whites are already sorted when they are put in the hampers, and diapers & other super-soiled clothes are in the wet bag. Bath towels get washed with kids clothes, or adult darks, depending on which hamper they are put in, and the laundry bucket in the garage gets dumped into the washer any time we run a kids load or a diaper load.
Also to keep things simple, we only use a few settings on the washer. Adult darks, and kids clothes get washed on "normal." We have this programmed as a warm/cold cycle, with max spin speed, and "medium" soil level (which affects the length of the wash and the rinses in our machine).
Adult whites are washed on "whites," which is a hot/cold cycle, with max spin speed, and "light" soil level.
Diapers are washed on the "heavy duty" cycle, which is also a hot/cold, with max spin speed, but with "heavy duty" soil level, and a pre-wash.
I use a liquid detergent, the same one for everything, and I don't use fabric softener or bounce sheets. The softeners are especially bad for the cloth diapers, and I don't like the extra chemical buildup in the rest of my clothes either. The detergent is a large bottle from Costco. I've used several different brands, but I really like any that have the dispensing spout on the side. I leave this bottle on its side on top of the washer, directly over the machine's dispensing drawer. When we put detergent in, we simply open the drawer and squeeze the button. Simple enough for my 5 year old. Every load has the same detergent in the same section of the drawer, except the diaper load. The diaper load gets a smaller amount in the pre-wash section, and that's it.
Everything is dried in the dryer on the same "normal" cycle. This is a medium heat, max dryness cycle. I keep a small garbage can next to the dryer to collect lint as we empty the filter.
Putting Away
We keep a collapsible laundry basket next to the dryer for collecting clean, dry clothes. This basket is then brought in the house and left on the fireplace hearth to wait for folding. I know some people swear by folding clothes as they come out of the dryer, to prevent excessive wrinkling, and to get it done quickly. We do not do this in our house for two reasons: 1) the laundry area is in the garage where it is frequently freezing in winter and boiling in summer and no one wants to stand out there any longer than is necessary, and 2) moving the laundry, and folding and putting away the laundry are two different chores, for two different people.
When the laundry is folded, it is also sorted by person. The kids clothes usually include piles for towels and such also. Then the girls' clothes are placed on their dresser, and the boys' piles are placed on their beds, so each person is responsible for getting their clothes in their own drawers. The person folding, sorting, and putting away clothes also puts away all towels and diapers where they belong. Since the adult clothes are washed separate from the kid clothes, they don't need to be sorted much, and most of them are hung up in the master closet by me and my husband before we climb in bed.
The Moral of the Story:
-Make your servants work for you.
-Only use tools that help you get your work done, not ones that take more time or make things more complicated.
-Keep things as simple as possible, preferably easy enough that a 5 year old can remember how to do it (and then have them do it *wink*).
-Use your system consistently, as often as needed.
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