Here are the five steps to setting up your own laundry system. The time has finally come to talk about laundry. The Kryptonite to all of us. Except for my mother-in-law and my grandmother. You may be one of the few chosen women or men that love doing laundry. For myself, laundry is my kryptonite. But I will tell you the system that helps me from keeping piles and piles of not dirty laundry, but clean laundry.

And you know what, the clean and the dirty laundry. Then you dig through the pile to dig for the sock, can’t find the sock, can’t find the shirt. So now the kids are searching through the dirty laundry hamper. And then you feel like you have to spend 6 hours doing a house full of laundry.

We all know that feeling of overwhelm when it comes to laundry. You’re out of the towels or out of wash rags; you are about to love this system. I am so excited to talk to you about something so fundamentally basic that we should be able to figure this out. And that is why we all keep putting it off because it’s so basic.

I have some fun things to talk about and some cute little hacks, but in a nutshell, we will go over Five steps to setting up your laundry system. I kid you not; I inherited this gene from my mom, but it has been my life’s work to figure out how to keep up with laundry. It is just so much, and it just never ends.

Listen below for the entire episode on The Systemize Your Life Podcast

Can You Outsource Your Laundry?

Outsourcing your laundry is very helpful in the name of being very open and honest with you. And I outsource some of my laundries to my grandmother, who is 91. Her parents owned a dry cleaning business; she loves doing laundry and is fantastic at it. The same goes for my mother-in-law is also incredible at doing laundry and loves it.

They ask to do my daughter’s laundry. And they only sometimes do it. So we take it there and pick it up. I use the Marie Kondo method of folding. The name of the game for me is getting all the laundry folded and put away. So I have seen women with several children and their laundry. We have talked about it all inside of the Systemize Your Life Academy. Which you should go check out. The basic method for doing laundry goes like this.

1. Setting Up your Weekly Rotation

First, calculate how many people in your family you are doing laundry for. So I am only doing laundry for myself, so I am doing one day of washing and one day of drying. Let’s say you have eight people in your home and want to do laundry only five days a week.

Then it would be best if you decided that Monday through Friday, we are doing one load every day, and that is five loads; you have to add those three additional loads back into the week. Here are some examples of what your weekly rotation might look like.

Monday – 1 load
Tuesday – 2 loads
Wednesday – 2 loads
Thursday – 2 loads
Friday – 1 load

Or
Monday – 3 loads
Wednesday 2 loads
Friday – 3 loads

Make sure you decide when and for whom you will do laundry on those days. But then I have towels and bedlinens that I need to throw into the mix, but we are not going to go over that today. But you can use these five steps to setting up your own laundry system for bedding too. So for now, we are just talking about the staple laundry that needs to be done. So we are discussing a weekly rotation I am doing one day a week.

2. The Bins

Your actual laundry hampers do not throw them away if you have them and don’t buy the ones from the store that have laundry painted on them. Please don’t buy it. Please don’t use it. It would be best to get the tiniest bin you have ever seen, like one of those tube totes that fit in a cube.

If you go into a store like at Target or Walmart, you can grab the cube organizer sized bins. These totes only hold a little and that is what you need. It is an important part of the five steps to setting up your own laundry system because that is how this process works. Every single person in the house will have a bin for their laundry. It is not a good idea to throw everything in the laundry room so stop putting your hampers in the laundry room.

Your Laundry Room

Make sure you have a trash bin in the laundry room,. If you can create it, a folding space would also be ideal. It could be something that folds down from the wall. Please look up how toxic dryer sheets and softeners. If you just stopped using those, you would prevent so many toxins from entering your kid’s bloodstream and your own. Do a quick google on it if you don’t believe me and see what you find there.

Swap Out Your Detergent

Your detergent ditch them too. I have a clean detergent, and my fabric softener is good old fashion vinegar. Have them right in on a shelf in your laundry room where they are easy to grab and pump into the washer. I have the cutest glass bottles from target that I can pump. It is less messy than having to pour it and dump it into the wash.

We have our dryer balls instead of our dryer sheets that I dab on mine. I also have a basket in my laundry room. If you have a space to hang your clothes. Just having everything at arms reach that you would need. Then once your laundry is done, have a folding station. For me, it is just a bedroom and the bed we go into to put everything away.

3. The Time of Day

It would be best if you were building these routine stacks inside our time blocks. Where is the queue for you to put the laundry in, over, and then put away? Who else is there to help you put it away? The time of day doesn’t have to be all at once. You can get strategic about where you are putting it away. And where it is best to fit for you and your family to get the job done.

“We all know that feeling of overwhelm when it comes to laundry. You’re out of the towels or out of wash rags; you are about to love this system.”

5. Putting it Away

Only some people in your family can put away their clothes. But there are people in your house that can put it away. This is a task that my five-year-old could do. Does she, at five years old, put out her laundry? Not. But does she help? Yes. Organize the space. Label the drawers. It is such a game changer when you can communicate a system to your kids and when they complete it.