Simplify! Simplify! Simplify!
Conscious Laundry 101: What can we do to reduce work, save time, energy, and money? Here are some more laundry tips for Simplicity Living, “4-Hour” style.
Recent changes in my house:
- Rule: Each person has only 2 towels with a unique color. Noone may use any towel that is not his own. (This should cut down on the kids taking a new clean towel whenever they feel like it.)
- Instead of hit-or-miss and inconvenience of trying to get my 5 and 7 year olds to put clothes in the hamper twice per day, I decided I would give them the rule: All dirty clothes off bedroom floor into hamper at night before bed. I still have to tell them to do it, but now I have crossed it off the A.M. list of things to do.
My usual laundry process:
- I enjoy having our washer/dryer in our main bathroom. (We rent, so this may change this year.) This has allowed me to process laundry in the morning and evening or whenever I am doing other work nearby. This also allows me to re-use water from the tub after the kids take a bath (we don’t use a lot of soap)–I haul bucketfuls to the washer a few feet away, only for the wash cycle (not the rinse cycle). This only takes a couple of extra minutes, saving me money and water consumption. I like the value it helps me demonstrate to my young ones about (water) conservation.
#1: Think of "batch processing": sort many loads of clean laundry all at the same time. #2: Break complex tasks into small steps--this helps you see what can be batched and helps young children learn the small steps instead of being overwhelmed by a multi-step task.
- Batch Processing. I wash as much through the week as possible, saving the folding and putting away until the weekend. This might be too messy for some people. I have a basket in each child’s room, so during the week, some clean clothes accumulate in their baskets, unfolded. I have a few baskets of clean laundry hanging around in my bedroom (all of these rooms currently on the same floor). I try to get the whole family involved in sorting and putting away laundry on Saturday or Sunday morning. The kids have learned if they are looking for a clean item that’s not in their rooms, check the extra baskets and the dryer. I am thankful when my husband puts away his own laundry, demonstrating to the kids that we all help. Sometimes I do sort a basket or put away towels during the week, but that’s usually because a batch of towels is piling up. Exceptions exist, but it’s the mindset to “Batch it!” that works here. And, you cannot use this as your excuse to procrastinate!
- I have a 3-bin sorting cart and I made 3 color charts to help the kids see which clothes to put in which bins. This allows the concept to sink into their little heads over time: break the large task into simpler steps. Since the rules on which items can be washed together are fuzzy and different for different households, this allows them to learn over time—they sometimes ask questions about sorting.
Batching sometimes requires duplicitous clothing, such as extra t-shirts of the same color, kids pajamas, or socks and underwear. Anytime we have to scramble to wash a particular item, I ask whether I need to acquire an extra of that item.
These are my loads:
- One basket of cleaning rags and kitchen towels per week, washed in hot.
- In the sorter: reds/pinks/orange/brown
- In the sorter: darks, jeans, including dark towels
- In the sorter: lights and whites
- In the winter I set aside some items that get special attention, such as woolens that can be washed but not dried. With a load full of “special” items, they aren’t lost in a “regular” load.
- A hamper in the master bedroom usually contains my husband’s stuff. It’s nearby to the laundry area. I save up white t-shirts in the bottom of this one to be washed in hot, probably a load every 2 weeks.
- Every time I begin a new load, I am questioning which load is highest priority right now. Sometimes it is the stuff waiting on the top of the washer (code for “wash me now”), or I do an assessment of what’s in the hampers.
Do you have any tips that make laundry easier or simpler? Do tell!