Laundry and I are not on the best of terms.

I feel that he/she/it is is needy, high-maintenance, never satisfied, ungrateful, and constantly undermining any efforts I make.

I’ve tried. Really I have.

I added it to my list of daily non-negotiable tasks a very long time ago. I even gave it several weeks of focus, trying to come up with a way to make things work.

But still, I find myself searching for a “standardized dress approved” shirt for my son to wear to school. The laundry piles don’t look any more tamed than they did before.

Basically, it didn’t work because I haven’t been consistent.

In this “coming clean” process, I have attempted to develop new habits. I’m working to change my thinking. I don’t want to be satisfied with the excuse of “that’s just the way I am.”

But there are times when I need to accept “how I am” and find a way that works for me.

Flylady recommends doing a load of laundry a day. She’s the expert, not me, so I gave it a shot.

But here’s the problem. Doing one load a day requires this thing called “remembering.” Turns out, I’m not so good at that. I remember to check the bathrooms for clutter when I sit down to type up my daily checklist. I can get up, go do it, and be done with that task for the day. But laundry requires lots of “remembering.” First, you have to remember to put the laundry into the washer. Then you have to remember to take it out and put it in the dryer. After that, you have to remember to take it out of the dryer. Then you have to fold it and put it away. And if you are going to do this EVERY SINGLE DAY, you have to remember all of this in the midst of everything else you have going on.

So, as I’ve been working on coming up with weekly tasks, I have decided to try laundry as a weekly task rather than a daily task.

Mondays are my new laundry day.

I’ve mentioned before that for one year of my life, I had laundry under control. When the boys were little bitty, no one was in school, and we were ALWAYS home on Thursdays, I did all of our laundry on Thursdays. Then, the next year when our schedule changed, I never found a new day and ended up giving up.

I’ve had some great excuses for not trying this again. With kids in school, you’re never “always home” on specific days. Days are also much shorter. When the kids were little bitty, I could keep working ALL day, but now the break when I go pick up the boys and go into homework/supper prep time totally throws me off.

But I’m going to give this a try. Since the load-a-day attempt completely failed, I have to try something.

For today it’s working pretty well. I started the morning by stripping sheets and making piles of all the loads that need to be done. It helps me to have every single item of dirty laundry out in front of me at once. When I’m just doing one load, I ALWAYS end up missing a few items that should have gone with that load, and then it might be a week before I get around to doing that load (of whites, darks, whatever) again.

I also remember a great feeling of accomplishment when I used to do this. Knowing that every single item of clothing in the entire house was clean for one brief moment in time was extremely gratifying. And lifting the constant burden of feeling like I should be doing laundry was nice too.

We’ll see how it goes.

*FYI, Laundry Day probably won’t work for you if you’re on a septic system, as it may overload your system. Sorry!