Put down your pitchforks and hear me: I’m the worst at laundry. I hate laundry. It’s not uncommon for my laundry to sit in multiple hampers for weeks until it’s finally washed, then sit unfolded in baskets in my room, eventually folded (probably by my husband) and never put away. And there are only three of us!
My daughter has so many socks and underwear that she can go weeks without having her laundry washed…because that’s how often I did laundry.
Enter…doing laundry daily.
It was a task I set out to take on after stumbling across a post from someone else while I was researching decluttering. I don’t know who or where, but I thought, “LOL, yeah right.” But it sat back in the back of my head.
I had to do something because being home 24/7 during the pandemic and working in a cluttered space was getting to me. So, I got rid of my hampers; we have one hamper and it’s for towels only. We put our dirty clothes on the bedroom floor in a corner. Why such madness, you ask? For that reason precisely…it drives me mad! So I am forced to pick the clothes up and wash them. Out of sight, out of mind is most certainly at play when it comes to laundry.
During this time, we transitioned to a new bedtime routine for my daughter. She goes to bed around 8 o’clock and then I’ll fold the one basket of very manageable laundry and put it all away. It takes me usually fewer than 15 minutes! It’s incredible and I feel accomplished. We have been able to get rid of a lot of clothes we don’t really need, and stick to the basics…(I still have entirely too many clothes though.)
I take the weekends off and I only wash towels on Friday. Don’t think I haven’t missed a day here or there, either. Nobody is perfect. Yeah, my water bill might be a little bit higher, but my anxiety is not. I’m no longer overwhelmed by the clutter of laundry staring at me. I never — in one million years — thought I would be a person to say that I do laundry every day or that I would even keep up with it. But here I am.
I want to share the positive way this has changed my life. I wish someone had shared about the impact this could make sooner. It’s probably not for everyone, but it works for us. Trust me, save your sanity and try it.
