Time Saver Tuesday!

I don't know about you, but I'm not the biggest fan of cleaning. I'm way too lazy busy to spend all day dusting and polishing and scrubbing. However, my house looks much nicer clean than dirty, and I don't want my kids growing up in an unorganized nasty mess. So, although I don't like it, I clean. The same goes for cooking. I actually really like cooking, I just rarely have the time I would like to prepare creative and healthy meals. I have developed some great tips and tricks to expend as little effort as possible maximize the efficiency of my cleaning and cooking, and I thought Time Saver Tuesday would be a great way to share those with all of you, as well as learn some new tricks and time savers! This week's problem:

The Dreaded Laundry.

image via ewoodsigns.com.  I'm totally going to buy this as soon as I'm done writing this post.

I'll admit it.  I'm totally a reformed slob.  Especially when it comes to the laundry.  I had a laundry room when we lived in Colorado about three years ago that seriously could have been a candidate for Hoarders.  Just a giant pile of clothes about thigh high.  I'm surprised we never lost a kid or a cat in there, for real.

The task of the laundry, especially for a family of four, including two very small little girls, was just too daunting for me.  I had never been taught a proper routine for laundry, and instead of doing something productive like figuring one out, I just ignored the problem.  And allowed the piles to ensue.

Thankfully, for myself and my lovely family, I figured it out.  Ignoring the problem was helping no one, except for the family of rodents that was living under the aforementioned pile.  (Kidding.)  (I hope, anyway.)  I think I've come up with a pretty great system to keep things totally under control!  Not to toot my own horn, but I don't think you could find enough dirty clothes in my house currently to come up with a full load.  Success!!!

The first step is to choose your system.  My mother, for example, prefers to set aside one day a week as laundry day.  It's usually her deep cleaning day as well, and she devotes the whole day to doing laundry.  As for me, I prefer doing one load a day.  I worry that if I let it pile up all week, I would get totally overwhelmed come laundry day and go back to the ostrich trick.

  If I can't see it, it can't see me.

By doing one load a day, I never get overwhelmed, and things never get a chance to pile up.  Also, sometimes doing that first load will inspire me to do more, and I end up inadvertently having laundry day anyway.

One thing I had never done before last year was sorting laundry.  I know, right?  How does one reach their late twenties without knowing that you are supposed to sort laundry?  Well, I've got it down now, and my sorter is my new favorite organization item. I prefer a four bin sorter-one for blacks, one for whites, one for the girls clothes, and one for everything else.  It makes my life so easy...just grab out a load, throw it in, and voila!  No fuss, no muss, no guessing.

So, you've got things washed and dried, now what?  My old tactic was to throw everything into a basket to be folded, then procrastinate get distracted and leave it.  Items would be pulled out as needed, thrown into the dryer to get the wrinkles out, then worn and back into the fold-pun intended.  What a waste of time, electric energy, and my energy.

My new tactic is this...straight out of the dryer and either folded or hung, no exceptions.  Nothing leaves my laundry room unless it is ready to be put away, and directly put away it is.  I lucked out when we bought the new house, it has an upstairs laundry room (no laundry leaves the 2nd floor-EVER!) complete with a shelving unit including clothes rack.  This setup totally keeps me organized.  I fold things right onto the top of my washer/dryer, and keep all extra hangers on the rack so I can hang items directly out of the dryer.  If I don't give myself an opportunity to screw up, then I don't screw up!  Imagine that.

Another time saver...my husband wears a lot of dress shirts for work. (yum)  I can't iron a dress shirt to save my life.  (Dude, I was just a clothes hoarder three years ago...I've improved, but don't expect miracles here.  Sheesh.)  I also don't want to pay to have them dry cleaned every single time either.  That gets expensive.  My solution?  When I do have shirts dry cleaned, I get medium starch.  It is soft enough that it is totally wearable, but starchy enough that it usually sticks around for about three washes.  When you wash it, just pull directly out of a hot dryer and hang.  There should be enough starch left over to stave off wrinkles and make ironing unnecessary--yes!!!

And lastly, dreaded baby clothes.  They are SO cute, yes, but they are a pain.  Folding a load of baby clothes takes at least 689 times longer than adult clothes.  They never fit into dressers quite right, or stay folded.  My time saving solution?  I hang almost everything.  I fold onesies and socks, and hang everything else.  Stock up on a ton of children hangers, and go to town.  It takes less time to hang something via folding it, and saves SO much space and stress.

I hope you found this post helpful! If you have an idea you'd like to share, please feel free to leave it in the comments or email it to me at kisha.floren@gmail.com and I'd be happy to share it in a future Time Saver Tuesday post!