A Laundry Experiment: Part 2

A few months ago, I wrote a post about my struggle with laundry (A Laundry Experiment: Part 1).  You can go back and read it, but the basics are this:  There was too much laundry and we never had the right things clean when we needed them or they were clean, but were buried in a giant pile of clean clothes on the couch, coined "laundry couch."  I tried to figure out how to overcome my laundry woes, and vowed to try the following:

• Get the whole family involved in bring laundry from all rooms in the house to the laundry room and sorting it nightly before bed.
• Wash loads of laundry as my laundry sorter got full rather than waiting to do it all on the weekends
• Create some sort of visual reminder so I would remember to start a load or switch clothes from washer to dryer.
• Fold and hang clothes IN the laundry room to avoid laundry couch!  This also means I wouldn't empty another load from the dryer until the previous one was put away.  

Though this experiment wasn't very scientific, I did have a hypothesis and have reached a conclusion (that are one in the same) - I HATE LAUNDRY!!!!  I've failed pretty miserably at most of the points above, but I did learn from my experience. Since I have accepted the fact that laundry will never end, I have some new ideas to try as a result of my failures.

Sorting
The daily sorting is the ONE part of my experiment that really worked.  We don't do it at night, but rather the kids do it every morning.  One kid empties and sorts the laundry from the first floor and the other kid takes care of the upstairs.  We have a two sided laundry sorter for lights and dark as well as a hard plastic hamper where we put the "hots" (things that should be washed in hot water.)  I really like this new habit.  It keeps hampers in the bedrooms and bathrooms from overflowing and makes it visibly obvious when we need to do a load!  We will definitely keep this one!

Washing on Demand
I have been doing laundry during the week much more than I did before, so I'll continue putting a load in the washer when I notice the sorter is full.  The problem has been that I sometimes forget to move it to the dryer and then it gets stinky and has to be rewashed.  The next point about the reminder is what I was really missing!

Reminders
I originally thought I'd make some cute sign that I'd hang near the laundry room to let me know when there was laundry in the washer, but instead I thought I'd go the technology route and set a recurring reminder on my iPhone.   Spoiler alert - - it didn't work.  I quickly became immune to the reminder and just swiped left to dismiss it every day, twice a day.  

Instead of this type of reminder, I'm going to try pairing, when you connect two activities or make one dependent on the completion of the other.  I first heard about the strategy of pairing from author and podcaster, Gretchen Rubin.  I'm thinking that I will pair TV with laundry.  Before I will allow myself to watch TV, I'll have to check the status of the laundry and do the next step - starting a load, switching a load to the dryer and/or folding a load. ​

Use the Laundry Room
I was naive to think that folding laundry in my un-air conditioned laundry room would work in the summer  - it was just too HOT!  In addition, my laundry room is the landing zone for things that have to go to the basement.  I keep clothes that are too small for my oldest son, but still too big for my youngest son in the basement, and with the way my 11-year-old has been growing, each week there have been new things to retire from his wardrobe.  I almost constantly have a bag or just a pile of clothes on top of the dryer poised to go to the basement, which doesn't allow me any room to fold even if the temperature were comfortable.

Since I'm planning to use TV watching to remind me to do the next step in my laundry,  I'm going to go back to folding while I watch.  I used to do this after it got really piled up, but if I fold this each time I watch TV (which is most days) I should be able to avoid laundry couch!  

I'm also going to use pairing to get items down to the basement.  I have one solid nighttime routine, and that is tucking my kids into bed (I've told them this will continue until they go to college!)  Since the only time I don't do this is when I'm not home or I am sick, I can count on this nearly every night.  As the kids start brushing their teeth in preparation for going to their bedrooms, I'm going to take one load to the basement.  If I do this nightly, the laundry room should stay manageable.

New Problems
I did notice a couple of new problems while being  more aware of my laundry process these past few months.  One was that my youngest son has TOO MANY CLOTHES!  This is not because we buy him stuff, but because he gets hand-me-downs from a few different sources.  It makes it difficult for him to put his clothes away because his drawers are stuffed!  Many times clean clothes end up on the floor and it's difficult to tell the difference between then and the dirty ones, so clean clothes are getting washed again!  It's time to purge again!  ​

The other problem is socks.  I'm starting to have a hard time telling the difference between my older son's and my husband's socks, so we bought a different color and brand for each and solved that problem!.  I also continually struggle with odd sock problems.  I've tried having my kids put their socks in mesh bags and washing them in there, but that didn't work - they were as successful getting them in the mesh bag as they were at getting them in the hamper! I've decided that once a week, I'm going to take all the socks in my odd sock bin where I put socks without a match after each load of laundry and put them into "sock purgatory" a separate bin kept up high on my laundry room shelf.  Once a month, I'm going to match any socks from my odd sock bin to my sock purgatory bin and any that are left will get thrown away.

Laundry will never be something I enjoy, but it's not going away, so I'm hoping these observations I've made will help me keep up with it better!  Do you have any great laundry tips to share?  I'd love to hear them - please comment below!