Laundry Day. Oh, Laundry Day.
How I love thee.
I know it sounds a little (or a LOT) over-dramatic, but seriously, y’all . . . Laundry Day is the best thing that has happened to me in this whole deslobification process.
It’s 10 a.m. on a Monday morning right now, and the second load is in the dryer. I’m driven to get it all done so I can NOT do laundry for the next six days.
Lest you think I’m some super-organized person who does things perfectly, it’s actually Tuesday morning. When I wrote that, I totally believed in my heart it was Monday since the kids were out of school yesterday and my allergic-to-schedules brain is all off-kilter.
Whatever.
I big, puffy-heart love Laundry Day. There are two whole chapters about it in my first book. I blather on about exactly how it works even though it seems like it shouldn’t work for people like me, and exactly why all the reasons I resisted it for so long are wrong.
But that’s not what this post is about.
This post is about decluttering. And how Laundry Day helps me declutter.
#1 – I’m Aware of How Many Clothes We Have
Pre-Laundry Day, I had no clue how many clothes we had. Or how many we needed. I just knew we were always running out of clean clothes. Always. So I was always buying more.
Buying more meant I could wait longer before I had to do laundry. Waiting longer to do laundry meant the piles were bigger (and were more like mounds than piles). Bigger piles/mounds/monstrosities meant I was more paralyzed and overwhelmed at the thought of doing all that laundry, so I waited. So I thought we didn’t have enough clothes because we kept running out. So I bought more.
The first step of Laundry Day is to sort every last piece of dirty clothing in the entire house into piles. If you are against sorting by color (as some are), sort into random-colored piles the size of your washing machine’s capacity.
One look at the piles on the first Laundry Day was enough to break through my Slob Vision and show me we had too many clothes. Way too many.
I also saw, as I worked through those blankety-blank piles, that we had clothes we would never, ever wear. That at the bottom of our hampers and baskets, never to make it into an emergency load, had been outgrown clothes, doll clothes, and other-and-assorted made-of-fabric stuff.
SEEing our dirty clothes all in one place showed me our excess.
#2 – Confidence in My Undies Undie Supply
One reason I couldn’t even consider getting rid of clothing was fear of going commando. I had zero confidence whatsoever that I’d find clean clothes when I opened my dresser drawer. Which meant purging clothes never entered my mind as a possibility.
Once Laundry Day became a consistent thing, I was able to relax. I could finally trust that I would have the clean clothes I needed when I needed them.
#3 – Kids Choose Their Favorite Clothes Without Knowing That’s What They’re Doing
The best perk I experienced of Laundry Day was that my kids didn’t even realize they were identifying their favorite clothes.
When I got to the point I was truly only washing one week’s worth of clothing (which doesn’t happen on the first Laundry Day), I saw clearly what wasn’t being worn.
Clothes left in drawers aren’t favorites. Favorite clothes, when they’re clean every week, get worn every week.
Decluttering clothing was ridiculously easy when I could see so clearly which clothes my kids chose to wear last. Or didn’t choose at all.
I’d love to hear about the laundry system that works in your house and if it has opened your eyes to Clothing Clutter.
If you have no laundry system, or if you’ve tried unsuccessfully (like I did) to do a load a day, I encourage you to give Laundry Day a shot.
Here’s the podcast I recently recorded with my husband. In it, he talks about how the change in laundry has been one of the biggest and best changes in our home.
If you’re overwhelmed with laundry and/or your home in general, check out my book, How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind. I tackle laundry and everything else home-management-related in that book. Go here to learn where to buy or order.
*FYI, Laundry Day probably won’t work for you if you’re on a septic system, as it may overload your system. Sorry!
--Nony
Thank you so much for this reminder! Most of my laundry is down in the basement which inspired me to go through my 3 sons’ drawers and grab whatever was in there that looked unworn or at the way bottom of the pile! I’ve got a huge rubbermaid ready to donate for tomorrow! Yeah!
Yes! I have definitely noticed my youngest’s clothing preferences, and decluttered his closet as a result. My older two do their own laundry! So…I need a little help with their closets. It is totally worth it to me to have two cluttered closets in rooms I rarely enter in exchange for 3-4 loads of laundry that I don’t have to do each week, though. They don’t seem to mind the crowded closets, either–anything to avoid the dreaded, ok-boys-we’re-going-to-sit-here-until-you-try-on-every-single-piece-of-clothing-so-I-know-what-to-get-rid-of-and-what-we-need-more-of discussion 🙂
I do laundry on a schedule. I am simply not home long enough on any one day to do the laundry for a family of six plus sheets and towels all on the same day. I suspect this might be true for many readers. So in addition to the kitchen linens that I throw in the wash daily with one load or another, it’s:
Monday: laundry of kids 2 and 3
Tuesday: all pool towels and the parental laundry
Wednesday: downstairs bath towels (we have two showers downstairs and three upstairs) and laundry of kids 1 and 4
Thursday: upstairs bath towels and catch up load for kids 2 and 3
Friday: master bedroom sheets weekly and a rotating schedule of the four kids’ sheets; catch up load for parental laundry
Saturday: catch up load for kids 1 and 4
Sunday: day of rest unless there’s an emergency like someone had a bloody nose on their sheets LOL
I frequently discard worn clothing or clothes that the kids think is ok that I don’t as it comes through the laundry. We go through drawers and closets about 4 times a year and are ferocious about discarding unworn items.
I’m a once-a-weeker too. Laundry was the one thing I had somewhat of a hold on before I found your blog and podcast (which I binge listened to in less than 1 week!). When you shared that you fold right out of the dryer, I was so excited that I do that too! There are very few things housekeeping-wise for me to be proud of 😉 Thank you for sharing your journey. You’ve been and continue to be a huge impact on my journey.
Amen Sista!!!! I didn’t realize how bad my laundry “system” was until I took your advice and started a laundry day. The first week was pretty much horrible because it took me 2 FULL days to get all of the laundry clean, but I stuck with it and have never looked back. Before, I always felt like there was always laundry hanging over my head. I couldn’t do quick, sports uniform loads because there were already clothes in the washer and dryer, clogging up the system. Now I have the machines free to do a load of sheets or uniforms mid-week. I am so grateful for you sharing the system with me. I can’t wait to read your book!
I’ve tried all the ways, too. Once a week laundry day didn’t work for me. The sheer volume of things to put away at the end was just too much. I had tried the load-a-day approach (putting a load in in the morning and getting it put away by evening) but that somehow never worked, either. A month or so ago I started a new system, which seems to be the perfect solution for me. I put a load in the washer before I go to bed at night, transfer them to the dryer when I wake up the next morning, and then I have pretty much all day to get that one load folded and put away. It helps that my dryer is in our downstairs bathroom so I see that there are clothes in there waiting to be folded every time I go in there throughout the day. Putting away just one load isn’t nearly as daunting as a whole week’s worth. Sorta Awesome Meg turned me on to this in a recent episode of the Sorta Awesome podcast. Whatever works, right?
I had a laundry day (Saturdays) when I first got married but so many of my clothes don’t get put in the dryer that it overwhelmed my drying rack and seemed overwhelming to put away when it all had dried. What currently works for me is a load or two every weekday. I separate the clothes in our bedroom hampers (3) every morning into the hampers in my laundry room, then I was two loads.
Keeping up with the laundry does remind me how many clothes I have. I definitely know I need to do some purging of my clothes.
Apparently, over the years I have been stockpiling undies like they are going to quit making them. To the tune of two drawers jam packed full. And Pre-laundry day there were times when they were both empty. These days it’s rare if I even make it to the 1/4 mark in 1 drawer even when I miss a whole months’ worth of laundry days. So while I should be working on the OMG what happened to the kitchen mess, I forsee some undie purging this weekend. 🙂
For me it’s the folding/putting up that I dread. Yet every time I do it, it takes all of 5 minutes.. I spend more time moving it around and finding creative ways to avoid doing it than it actually takes me to just do it. I so need a motivation sign to post in the laundry room to remind me – It only takes 5 minutes – JUST DO IT!
It certianly takes less time than trying to figure out what to do with those 14 pairs of sheets for 1 bed that I don’t need anymore… and I so wish I were exaggerating!
I use a modified version of laundry day, by doing it about twice a week. Doing it all on one day for a family of 5 meant I didn’t get much else done that day and it was disruptive to our schedule. Plus, we routinely have sports uniforms that need to be washed twice a week. So, we gather and sort everything one day (the day actually varies depending what that week’s schedule looks like) and I wash/fold/put away as much of it as I can. Periodically, I wash the last load or two the following day. Sometimes, the extra stays in the laundry room sorter for a few days. Then, the next time there is a need to run a load of athletics, we gather and sort everything again, and wash as many full loads as I can.
This helps my drying rack not overload (as someone previously mentioned). And it means the washer and dryer are normally empty for emergency loads. Also, we have hampers in every bedroom and I use mine as a “container”. Since this system has been in place for a few years, I have noticed that if my hamper is getting full, then it’s been 4+ days since I’ve done much laundry which means it time for a laundry day.
I clean out kids closets every August and turn all the hangers backwards. The hangers that are still backwards the next August can go because they haven’t been worn in a year.
I love laundry days. I have just recently adopted them…maybe 2 months ago?? But we don’t have enough pants/jeans for any of us to make it an entire week so I wash on Fridays and Mondays. I don’t mind having 2 days. I use Friday as my main day and then Monday to catch anything I missed on Friday and to catch up whatever was worn over the weekend. I also have begun alternating bedding on Thursdays (my cleaning day) we have 3 beds so every 3 weeks, someone gets clean sheets. And that means every once in a while someone gets clean sheets twice in a month 🙂
We recently started having our kids be completely responsible for their own laundry. They each picked a day to do it, and it’s helping me get ours done on the same day each week. Often they don’t have enough for a load, so they do their sheets, or combine with a brother. One child usually procrastinates and misses his laundry day, currently he has no clean clothes at all. This is the first time so we’ll see what happens…fingers crossed he actually does it next time.
With it just being two of us, we don’t have a whole lot of laundry. So we just make it our goal to finish the loads we do have on the weekend. It normally consists of 1 load of colors (two if we slacked the last weekend), 1 load of towels, and 1 load of microfiber cloths and sheets. We usually only get enough whites for a load every 2 weeks. I fold towels and microfiber loads straight out of the dryer, but we immediately take clothing loads back to the bedroom and fold/put them away together. Usually while listening to an audiobook, watching an episode of something, or listening to music. It’s a good system for us, and we rarely get behind now.
I finished week 1 of laundry yesterday! I began Saturday while binge listening to your first book and finished yesterday while binge listening to your second book. Yes, it took 5 days. It felt so strange and wonderful to walk into my empty laundry room this morning! I’m looking forward to Monday when I’ll wash week 2’s laundry, and even more looking forward to NOT doing laundry the rest of next week! 😄
I just love you, girl! Your my fav blogger. I don’t keep up with anyone but you!
Here’s a tip for organizing laundry day BEFORE laundry day. Right now it is just my husband and me but this can work for any size family. I keep a series of hampers in my master closet: one is for whites (HOT), one is for my dress clothes and any clothes needing special treatment because of their color (COLD), one is for black socks (my husband goes through a LOT of these) and one for PERMANENT PRESS WARM (it includes jeans which I wash with towels; light colored clothes—which are washed alone and dark colored clothes—which are washed alone). Except for socks i turn ALL my clothes inside out (this happens pretty automatically as we take them off) because generally the dirt is on the INSIDE of your clothes and this saves the outer surface of your clothes from looking worn out as fast. I look into the closet every day and I can immediately tell if I need to do whites, dark socks or a cold load just by looking at the level of clothes in the hamper. Obviously the PERMANENT PRESS hamper, having 3 types of loads in it is harder to predict. But when it is right at the top I know I have at least one and probably 2 loads to do. This may sound complicated but it is actually very easy and natural. Unless I miss more than 2 days, the laundry is very easy to keep up with—it’s almost all sorted already!! Love your ideas and humor. Just finally accepting the fact that dishes really ARE a DAILY chore that MUST be done has been a breakthrough for me. Before they always seemed to come as a daily surprise (LOL)!!!!!!! Thank you for all your encouragement. I love your book about how to keep house without losing your mind!!
This may be the action that pushes someone over the edge… but I got light and dark laundry baskets for each closet and showed my children how to sort their clothes. Clothes are then already sorted for laundering. Also – if you wash by basket – it all goes directly back to the particular room it came from.