Motivation Monday - Let's Talk Laundry

One room I keep ignoring as I've been going through my declutter, sorting and organizing process is the laundry room. There isn't really a reason but I just seem to keep working around it. Maybe because it's always in use. This weekend over at my blog MM's Missions I committed to getting my laundry room done this week for the 52 Weeks of Organizing.

This is how it looks right now. Quite a mess. I plan to get it cleaned out and organized hopefully after work today. I thought you might enjoy doing a laundry room challenge with me. Just take a before photo, get your laundry room decluttered and organized this week. After making it all nice and pretty take an after photo and post your before and after photos on your blog, Be sure to leave a link in the comment section once you have it posted.

Now let's talk about the laundry itself. It sure can pile up fast can't it? When my children were younger I made it a habit to do a load of laundry a day to keep the piles under control. It takes almost no time at all to do one load of laundry, but having loads and loads to do at one time is a big pain! If you keep clothes done during the week all you have to worry about is throwing in sheets on the weekends, and folding those can be avoided by putting them right back on.

I have a secret - you don't have to sort clothes. Nope, they can all be thrown in together. Of course if you have some dedicates you'll want to keep those separate but things like jeans, t-shirts, shorts, socks and towels can all be tossed right in. This is something I've always done and never ruined a thing. Just be sure to wash any new dark clothing with only other dark clothing for the first washing or two, after that it will be fine.

I had to laugh when I read the same thing in The Organizing Junkie's Book Clutter Rehab - she doesn't sort her laundry either! It made me feel so much better to know I'm not the only one!

Now that my children are older they are in charge of their own laundry for the most part. Kids can learn to do it themselves by the time they are big enough to reach the knobs. Of course the younger they are the more help they will still need with folding but if you "help" them for awhile instead of doing it for them they can and will learn how do it. Folding t-shirts is still a challenge for my teen boys so they like to hang them up instead, works for me!

Another tip - if each person in the family has their own laundry basket there won't be anymore mixed up socks or clothes that were hand me downs winding up back in with the older child's clothes and it's so easy for children and teens to just bring out their basket when it's full and dump it all right in the washing machine.

How about ironing? I just say no! I can count on one hand how many times I've ironed something in the last 10 years. I just simply don't buy clothes that have to be ironed, and most clothes that are folded or hung straight from the warm dryer don't need to be ironed anyway. Save yourself some steps and stress, don't leave those clean clothes sitting it baskets, get them taken care of right away. If something does get a bit wrinkled just toss it back in the dryer with a damp towel for a few minutes and wrinkles disappear.

Do you have any laundry secrets to share?

Don't forget to get motivated and join the laundry room challenge this week!