Keeping Laundry Under Control

Is your laundry piling up? Maybe it’s on the floor next to your bed, draped over the chair in the corner, on the floor of your closet, spilling out of the hamper. You meant to take care of it last week, but really dislike doing laundry, right?

Here are some tips on keeping your laundry under control:

• Sort through your clothing and give away anything you have not worn in the past year. The less clothing you own, the less clothing you have to clean.

• Purchase a new clothes hamper that is smaller than the one you already have to keep you from becoming overwhelmed. Or, buy two small hampers to keep the dirty clothes sorted by color.

• When you take off your clothes, sort immediately by color (darks with darks, lights with lights) and put into the appropriate hamper. Put clothes to be dry cleaned aside and committ to taking to the dry cleaner within 2 weeks.

• If you use a Laundromat, instead of carrying that large laundry detergent box/bottle with you, or buying laundry soap packets there, put small amounts of detergent into clear containers with lids. Save quarters for the machines in a nice bowl or jar so you don’t have to go fishing around in your pockets or purse for change at the last minute.

• If your laundry room is not very attractive, spiff it up by adding a table for folding clothes, put down a nice scatter rug, vacuum away the cob webs, and perhaps put some pictures on the walls.

• Set up a weekly or bi-weekly schedule to do your laundry on your Outlook or Google calendar, or jot it down in your paper calendar. Make a commitment to adhere to this schedule.

• And, try to make doing laundry fun! Listen to, or sing your favorite songs, reward yourself with an ice cream, or take a bubble bath while the clothes are in the dryer.

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