How to Make Folding Laundry Less Annoying
Oh laundry. Terrible damn laundry. While looking through a basket full of freshly folded thread for the whole family is a great pleasure, albeit a mundane achievement, getting there is often difficult due to procrastination, days of using the basket as a closet, and many heavy sighs.
Perhaps you love doing laundry, but will walk past an overflowing basket of freshly laundered clothes for a week or more. You might not have a problem folding them quickly, but getting them up the stairs and putting them in the right drawers is like waiting for Godot . (Or maybe you’re the perfect household royalty who doesn’t understand why some people hate laundry so much. In that case, move on. No folding laundry hacks for you.)
For everyone else, if you don’t do these things below, you can get started. This will make the task less burdensome and more likely to be completed before the next Legacy season.
Pair it with something you enjoy doing
Make folding less burdensome by giving yourself some distracting “pleasure” to deal with it. Not exactly a donut (although that’s fine too), but adding your favorite pastime to your routine can make it less of a chore. Turn on your favorite show, podcast, playlist, or call a friend to take your mind off the monotony. (And we don’t blame you for making time more interesting with your favorite adult drink or edible.)
Fold your laundry now
We know it’s annoying, but it has to be said: taking clothes out of the dryer and folding them while they’re still warm saves valuable mental real estate that would otherwise be taken up by task resentment and quiet self-flagellation. for putting it off so many times. (Not to mention, the longer you do this, the more things will accumulate in your basket.) Doing this quickly takes all the energy of hemming and stretching, not to mention that your clothes become less wrinkled.
Avoid the laundry basket altogether
Imagine: Instead of dumping piles of clothes out of the dryer into another receptacle where they can lie closed and undisturbed for days or weeks, consider dumping those clothes on a table, sofa, or bed next to you. . The squeaky wheel gets oil, as they say, and the visible laundry that fills your living space represents a level of urgency that isn’t in your basement bin.
Wash socks in mesh bags, fold them last (or buy all new socks).
Searching, mating, and agonizing over what to do with lonely socks is one of the most annoying parts of folding clothes, and no one can convince me otherwise. Place them in mesh bags for easy removal and sorting before washing. You can even teach family members to put all their socks in a special bag instead of in a basket.
If you forget or the system crashes, always pull socks out of the larger pile and save them for last. If space permits, toss the socks (unfolded) into a box for each family member next to the shoe closet so they can be connected when needed.
To rid yourself of both of these problems? Swap your multi-colored patterned socks for solid white, gray, or black ones so they all go together, and you’ll never be annoyed by missing a sock again.
Stop adding up so much
Imagine a world where the duties of folding laundry have been drastically reduced – it’s possible! Of course, towels, jeans, cotton T-shirts and professional work clothes still need to be folded. But fitted sheets? Socks? Underwear? Pajamas? Sports equipment and swimming trunks? Your child’s entire Old Navy wardrobe? Negative. You can stop stacking these things right now.
With a shelf and a few inexpensive bins or canvas storage boxes from Walmart, you can turn your closet (or your child’s closet) into a safe place for lightly folded and neatly tossed clothes. Everything will still be in its place, but will be more freely placed in these places. And everyone will survive.
Use individual laundry baskets.
From where I sit with three kids under nine, it sounds like a pipe dream, but it could work for your family. In this laundry utopia, each member of the family has their own basket and, more importantly, a laundry basket. Each person’s laundry is washed separately and placed in a special basket to eliminate the need for careful sorting. (Bonus, if your kids are old enough to do their own laundry, they should .)
Make a schedule and follow the “no excuses” rule.
Based on your family’s rhythms, figure out which day or days to wash your laundry and do it consistently on those days. This habit will reduce the crappy moments your daughter plays football with her uniform buried under five pounds of wet towels. After washing your clothes, establish a ” no excuses rule ” that all clean clothes must be removed the same day . There may be some moaning at first when you realize you can’t get into bed with all those damn pants all over it, but over time it will get you used to the task even faster. And this is the goal.