Laundry Systems

Summary: Easily reduce 'laundry mountain' to 'intimidating laundry hill'
Cost: Nearly Free

I'm a guy working in an industry that accepts casual clothes, which pretty much puts me in the 1040EZ laundry category. I don't have delicates. Only my sweaters can't be put in the dryer, and I try to minmize my exposure to dry cleaners (Ever get this phone call: "Hello!? You have dryclean shirt here for whole year! Come get shirt or we throw out!") because it is all to easy to forget something there.

So Laundry reduces itself to just a few mountainous tasks:

• Pre-sorting
• Washing
• Drying
• Post-sorting
• Sock Matching
• Hanging up
• Folding

I have some systems for each of the tasks to make them easier;

Pre-sorting - for me it is a lot easier to sort colors and whites when I take them off than to face Laundry Mountain in each of the phases. I use two bins for dirty clothes -one for color, one for whites. I can do the bins one at a time or both on laundry day. I also use the bin to govern when to do laundry - when either bin fills up it is laundry time. Extra basket - $7

Washing - push-button Tide is one less thing to measure. Oh, and that soapy, goopy cup that you use to measure the liquid soap? Just toss it in with the load of laundry.
It amazes me in 2008 that washers don't work more like color printers - I want to snap in (goop free) a cartridge of soap, bleach, and softener that come in standard sized packs. I could have control of how much of each goes into each load specifically (light soap, please), and the little display would tell me when I was getting low on Downy.

Drying - I don't have a fantastic system for this - the most important thing is that the wet clothes actuallymake it into the dryer. Currently I leave the dryer door open (it has an automatic light) whenever the wet load of clothes goes in. The light and open door make sure I will at least do them that night.
I have a 'clean clothes' basket specifically for post drying step.

For some reason I don't have any problem cleaning the lint out of the dryer before the next load - it could be that it is a well-lit space with a large sign that says "REMOVE LINT BEFORE EACH LOAD", or it could be that I like the tactile rolling up the lint ball and replacing the clean screen. Add a comment if you struggle with this and maybe someone will have a system. I have a trash can in the laundry room - optional but useful ($5).

Post Sorting - isn't ideal - I make the bed, and just dump the clean loads of clothes out onto the top of the comforter. This makes a physical barrier that helps me focus on getting the laundry done and not having a giant basket of clean clothes to go through. On the other hand there are a few too many exhausted days where I am sorting clothing because I put it off. Open to suggestions on this one. (Free)

Post Sorting, Two kinds of socks - I have mentioned this in another post, but I have dark socks and white socks - all the same type.

I never do sock matching now because there is no need - this was a major impediment to successful laundry -I always have clean socks and they are effectively self sorting. I have also as a side effect removed any concern with the 'lone sock' problem. I tossed all the old single socks and bought all new socks of the same type. To do over, since I wear mostly jeans, black, and white I would have bought gray socks - because the soft black mens socks did not hold their color as well as I hoped and have reverted on their own to a dark navy. Gray socks would always be some shade of gray and probably okay. I still don't spend ANY time matching them. Not free but worth it - I'll say 20pr at avg $3/pr, $60.

Post Sorting, One drawer for drawers - I have a dedicated dresser drawer for socks, one for undershorts, one drawer for t-shirts, one drawer for misc (swim suits, lounging pants, etc) - when doing post-sorting I can sort directly into the drawers very easily. It is also an easy system to maintain because the level in the drawer represents the clean inventory - never any surprises running out of t-shirts or socks.

I hang everything - I like my t-shirts and everything else hung up - so I immediately gather all the hangers and start hanging stuff up. At my girlfriend's prompting I was able to toss all the remaining wire hangers and free drycleaner hangers and replace them all with sturdy plastic or wood hangers - that removed the decision and 'hanger hunt' looking for the right type for pants or shirts or whatever. Dollar store is a good buy for these - 5 or 10/$1, 70 hangars about $7-14

Fold the big stuff first - Part of being able to continue with a boring and repetitve task is to maintain steady progress or the *illusion* of progress. For me, folding up the sheets and towels moves a large volume of material in a hurry and reduces 'laundry mountain' to 'intimidating laundry hill'. So fold the big stuff first - having those neat stacks is encouraging. (Free)