Think of the one chore that you love to hate. Doing the dishes? Not so bad of a chore. Washing the floor? Dealable. Changing the bedsheets. Now you’re getting warm.
It’s the laundry. The dreaded household chore.
If you’re like most moms, laundry is the never-ending, least gratifying chore in the entire world. You think you’re done, and lo and behold, a kid comes in with a dirty soccer uniform and you’re right back where you started – in the laundry room. Or you’ve just washed all the bedsheets and you hear that whine in the middle of the night signifying a sick child, and there it is. Vomit on the sheets. Or worse, there was this one time when my then seven-year-old son had a weak digestive tract that … well, never mind. I won’t tell you all my laundry woes, but that one had me up all hours of the night!
I’ve learned some things NOT to do in order to make the dreaded laundry chore a little more bearable, and I’d like to pass them along to you, in no particular order:
Don’t fold underwear
That’s insane. It’s a tiny item that someone’s going to take out of a drawer and put on UNDERNEATH their clothing anyway. Is there a point? I don’t think so.
Don’t match socks
Just don’t do it. I spent years matching tiny socks and neatly flipping them together, then taking them upstairs and shoving them into a drawer. Do you know how many calories I burned with this one activity alone? With 10 feet in my family to care for … billions!
I’ve come up with a brilliant plan for this sock-sorting chore. I purchased inexpensive bins that are color-coded per family member that I keep in the laundry room. When the socks come out of the dryer, I toss each person’s socks into his or her own bin. When they need socks, they dig around their bin until he or she finds a matching pair. It has also helped that I now buy each kid a particular brand/color so it’s even easier for me to sort into each individuals’ sock bin.
Don’t fold and place clothes into drawers for the kids
Clothes are just removed from these drawers a day later, correct? Don’t put the clothes into the drawers. Now that my kids are older, I have decided that I have spent way too many hours folding and placing clothes into drawers only to have items yanked out, tried on, and then stuffed back into drawers. Or even worse, clean clothes are thrown onto the floor, only to then be rewashed.
Now, I sort the clothes into baskets for each child, tell them to grab their basket and take them to their room. What they do with that basket … well, that’s up to them.
Don’t iron
Seriously, I never iron. On the occasion my husband has to have an ironed shirt for work, he does it. Of course, he doesn’t ask me where the ironing board is because I don’t know where it is! Ironing is for the fool-hearted. Because we all know what happens as soon as you put on an ironed item, right? Yep, it gets wrinkled.
Don’t not do hubby’s laundry
When in a time crunch, and there’s a pile as high as the ceiling, wash hubby’s laundry first. The kids can always throw on a dirty pair of shorts and go outside to play, but Daddy needs clean work shirts. Toss in a load of his clothes, fold them and leave them on the bed so he knows that you’ve been busy meeting his needs. You might not get all of the laundry done, but the one who will actually ask for clean clothes will have them.
If you incorporate only one of these don’t tips into your usual laundry routine, I can guarantee you will shave thousands of minutes off your chore time per year, and it will add so much to your life, you will wonder why you didn’t DON’T before.
Enjoy your new-found freedom. Start by throwing away your iron.
I’m in a VERY unusual circumstance where my husband does the laundry! However, when my baby comes I have a very strong feeling that I’m going to end up down in the laundry room more often than I’d like. These tips are fabulous and make me not as scared to venture in….