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You’re exhausted and you don’t know why. What did I do all day? You rarely feel a sense of accomplishment. Motherhood can often feel like groundhog day even when you aren’t in quarantine. It can be a monotonous, thankless job, especially when parenting during the little years. All of the household chores can be so demanding and overwhelming. It’s extremely hard, if not impossible, to keep up with everything!
Laundry is one of those household chores that doesn’t ever end. The relief of laundry being done and put away is over within a day or two!
There are quite a few time saving laundry hacks that can revolutionize your laundry routine.
10 Time Saving Laundry Hacks For Moms
1. Keep a donation bin in a central location.
Let everyone in your family know where the donation bin is located. Whenever they outgrow something or find a shirt that they don’t wear anymore, they’ll know where to put it. This donation box is a visual reminder for the family that they can reduce what they own at any time. It doesn’t have to be initiated by you. This can help reduce the clothing in the home and can keep you from being overwhelmed when you aren’t ready to discuss this topic.
2. Don’t designate a laundry day.
You can save so much time by doing one load of laundry a day or every few days verses waiting until the laundry backs up.
On newer washing machines you can use the quick wash function set on cold. This saves energy and gets the job done. Reserve the warmer water for clothes that are super dirty! Speaking of dirty clothes…
3. Teach children that a hamper is for dirty clothes only!
This is one of my pet peeves! Children need to be taught not to throw their clothes in the hamper after wearing them for a few hours!
4. Ditch the laundry basket!
If you’re someone that cleans the laundry and procrastinates folding it and putting it away, ditching the laundry basket might be a good idea for you.
This hack will also depend on the size of your home, location of your washer and dryer and ages of your children - Throw your laundry directly into the machine instead of using a laundry basket.
I consulted with my cousin, a mama of 3 kiddos 5 and under living in a one story home, about this hack. She’s a master at creating great routines in her family.
She stated that everyone, including her biggest kids, know that clothing/towels go straight into the washing machine once they are dirty. When the washer is full, they know to put some soapnuts in the machine, which is safe for kids to touch, and turn the machine on.
There is no need to have hampers in their bathroom/bedroom cluttering up their spaces with this option.
Once you start practicing minimalism and getting a better handle on simplifying your life and routines, you’ll have the mental space to begin creating schedules that actually stick because you’ll have less stuff in your home taking up your time.
Before minimalism, I was always catching up on the housework. My home was never fully clean. I spent a lot of time clearing my clutter before I could even get to the actual cleaning. Laundry was usually done on autopilot with a lot of overwhelm when it started to back up.
5. No more procrastinating!
This one is for those who leave wet clothes in the washing machine way too long! Laundry time is laundry time. Get all of the laundry steps done at one time! Utilize technology by making a habit of setting a timer on your phone to help you remember to complete the next step of the laundry. Creating rhythms and routines in your days can help you implement this task more efficiently. Cleanmama has some great tips for this!
6. Sock problems be gone!
So many lonely socks! The amount of time I’ve spent trying to match up socks is not cool! I even inherit socks from the neighborhood children from time to time! It’s madness! ;-)
You could make sock sorting a game by setting the timer and seeing how many socks your kids will match up but I promise, this will get old after a while.
Here are a few things you can do with those pesky socks to simplify your laundry routine:
Toss all socks and purchase socks that are the same color. If your kids are wearing the same sock sizes, this sock trick will eliminate the need to match up socks altogether!
Give each person their own colored mesh laundry bag and teach the kids to put their socks directly into that. Just throw the mesh bags into the washing machine and you won’t have to match them.
Purchase one of those adorable lonely sock stations so when a child’s sock is missing, they can look for it there. In my opinion, don’t waste your time on this one if you have more than 2 children. It may not be a good long term option, especially if you haven’t simplified the amount of socks each person owns!
7. Wash each person’s clothing separately.
Designate one laundry basket for each child and wash clothing separately so that you can save time and not have to sort the clothes before folding and putting them away.
Since my two younger girls share a room and they aren’t old enough to do their laundry yet, I have one hamper designated for both of their clothes. I wash theirs separately from the rest of the family. Laundry is a breeze with less to sort!
8. Teach your older children how to do their own laundry.
Use your judgement on the exact age that your child can do this one. By around age 8 your child is capable of washing, drying, folding and putting away all of their clothes. This in and of itself is so freeing! There is light at the end of the tunnel, mamas of littles!
If you’re someone that is prone to being a perfectionist, giving up control over the folding of the laundry might be hard.
Try to keep the end goal in mind. It is much more valuable for us to raise up our children knowing how to maintain a home than to try to do it all ourselves because of the fear of them doing it wrong. That’s not healthy for anyone.
Of course, your child will have to be taught how to do their laundry appropriately quite a few times until they are capable of taking on this task themselves.
Often the biggest problem with chore delegation is that parents are expecting the completion of a chore without coming alongside their child to teach them the exact steps to perform the task. Committing to a month or so of teaching a new skill by doing the chore with them will give you years of less housework!
When I first taught my 8 year old to do her laundry, we spent a lot of time using the label maker to label her draws. I made it super easy for her to know exactly where she should be putting her clothing away! This helped simplify her job.
9. Don’t wash lights and darks separately.
Unless something is brand new and you’re unsure if the color will bleed onto other fabrics, you do not have to sort the laundry. You can minimize the chance of your white shirts fading by purchasing only undergarments that are white. It won’t matter if they fade.
10. Less Clothing = Less Laundry
I’ll continue to shout this from the rooftops…A life with less will give you more time! This includes less clothing! Just because it fits in a draw or a closet, doesn’t mean it’s worth holding on to.
Consider creating a capsule wardrobe or participating in Project 333, a minimalist fashion challenge, to inspire you to declutter your clothes.
Imagine a mom life where laundry isn’t a big stressor in your week! It’s definitely possible! I hope these hacks were helpful and you can implement some of the ideas from this post into your own laundry routine!
Let me know if you have any laundry hacks to share in the comments!