The Laundry (Part 2)

Okay, so I finally had to stop and admit, this is not working.  Tell the truth.  I cannot get this job done. I cannot "stay on top of the laundry" with any lasting success. If I really focus and hold myself accountable and do it right, I can maintain the system for a little while, but life and imperfection worm their way in and eventually it breaks down. I'm exhausted and spent and yet there is still laundry everywhere. It's me against the system and the system wins. Ideally I will get myself together and implement this system better. I really like clean, neatly folded things just where I need them. But realistically I am not able to uphold this perfect standard. Realistically what I know about myself (and this might be different for you than it is for me) is that I will wash and dry the clothes pretty consistently, but everything will go to hell in the folding and putting away.  So If I want the system to work for me instead of the other way around, I have to set the system up so that it accommodates this human frailty (I've said this before and I will likely say it again--I enjoy it).  Of course I have to be ready to admit that I have some human frailty, and that is unfortunately, easier said than done. I have to be ready to say it out loud to myself and what's worse, there is a chance that someone else might see it too.

So what I came to was an extension of the whole idea we talked about before with the mail and the batteries and the Barbie shoes. It's one of my favorite little nuggets--Everything Needs a Home.  Most of us can identify where the things should go. Mostly, things do have a home.  For the laundry, the homes are the dressers, the linen cosets, the hall cabinets, etc.  But the next thing I found with the mail was that there also needed to be a home for things that can't be in their home right now! Realistically I am not able (or willing) to always put things in their homes--their homes are all over the house, and I'm mostly in my kitchen. There needs to be a convenient place to put things temporarily when you aren't perfectly running the system. For the laundry this meant having a place to put clean, unfolded clothes besides ON MY BEDROOM FLOOR. When I don't have time to fold, the laundry can still be tidy.  And then I also needed a place to put laundry when it was folded but not put away so that it would not be in baskets ALL OVER MY HOUSE.  

I decided to set up a laundry system in a central location that allows me to work on the laundry as it is convenient for me and so that whenever I need to walk away, the laundry would have a home. I wash the laundry--home is the washing machine. I dry the laundry--home is the dryer.  I pull it out into a basket--home is a Costco shelf with room for several baskets of clean unfolded laundry (you may need more, you may need less). Oh and PS, those baskets on the bottom are for crap I don't know what to do with and the one's on the top are for crap that needs to go into storage or the Goodwill.

I sort the laundry.  This is really where the system starts to change your life. What I figured out is that you sort the laundry anyway.  You just sort it after you fold it. This leaves you with exposed piles that must be addressed immediately.  You run the risk of these piles, that represent work already expended, getting unfolded.  You work fast or you've wasted your time! In this system you sort first. Not into unmarked piles on your living room floor and couch and coffee table, but into marked piles, that have homes! These piles are baskets on shelves (I really love bins, shelves and hooks. I cannot imagine the chaos I would have to endure without them!).

My sister-in-law, who does everything pretty, labels hers with her scroll-y little handwriting.  So this sorting doesn't take any longer than it took when you were putting folded cloths into piles, it just requires less delicacy. You can literally toss clothes into their baskets. Baskets that are in homes. Homes that are not your floor or your couch. I find that you can sort a load this way in a couple minutes.  And then, if you want to, you can WALK AWAY. Go to the bathroom, eat a cookie, or kiss your baby.  Whatever you want, whenever you want and your piles are safe and tidy on a shelf in a central place. Note: This central place has not always been in my laundry room. It has mostly been in my bedroom for lack of space. I have so many things to say in response to the objections you are having about that:) but I must go on.


Now this is key for those of you who are scoffing at my system saying "so you just have wrinkled clothes?" YOU ARE WELCOME TO FOLD THE LAUNDRY!! In fact, it has already been sorted for you, so now it's even neater.  Grab the basket of your daughter's clothes and fold them. All at once.  If you can, and have the inclination, you can even go right now and put them in their home--her dresser. It's pretty nice because you are dealing categorically so the bites are already organized and the chaos is already limited.  Also, I would challenge you to be honest with yourself about how often you have unfolded, wrinkled clothes right now.  If you are like me, probably a lot of the time, but you don't have to admit it because it is circumstantial, so you continue telling yourself that you prefer neatly folded clothes while you live with laundry all over your house and a small pit of anger brewing just below the surface. 

Also, if you have older children this system allows them to be so much more useful.  My 8 year old can sort clothes easily.  She is capable of identifying whose clothes belong to whom. She is not so skilled at doing the retail fold on her father's shirts (he is a meticulous man).  She also can't really fold the towels the way I like, but she can throw them into a basket for me that sits nicely on a shelf in my laundry center. My 10 year old can even push things through the washer and dryer.  The older they get, the better this gets. And best of all, they can now be in charge of their own stuff without having to get involved in everyone else's stuff. They know where their clothes are and they can fold them and put them way themselves--or not.  Whatever you like. I don't have to wait until they are old enough to be capable of laundry.  My four year old knows which baskets are his and he putters down there to get dressed.  In fact, I have found that I don't even bother with folding and putting away the kids clothes at all (but you are welcome to).


This system has had some additional benefits that I didn't even foresee. I HATED all of the clothes in their rooms all over the floor.  The kids are no good at cleaning.  If you have any, you know this. Just when I think the house is all tidy I go into their room and there is stuff everywhere, and a good bit of it was their clothes. I mean I have a hard time putting clothes away after I've worn them, and I care what my room looks like! What are the chances my kid is going to do it? This system keeps the clothes nicely organized in a central place where all of the cleaning and sorting and folding happens (or not). In my house the kids have to earn the right to take their clothes into their rooms and have them in their dressers.  Its a privilege.  When they show me that they can keep them tidy and put them away in their homes, they get to start taking their clothes from their baskets and putting them in their dressers. My little boys don't even have dressers--we aren't anywhere near this.  My 8 year old also prefers to keep her clothes in the laundry baskets because she doesn't want to deal with picking them up in her room. So yes, in my house there are unfolded clothes all of the time. This is my house, this is my reality. You have to find your own. I get to decide which things I care about being folded and which things don't matter so much.  I do it all as it is convenient for me and in the meantime the laundry has a home and it is literally NEVER on my living room floor.  I can actually say that.  It has been 6 years since I started doing laundry this way and it has been 6 years since I have dealt with laundry on the floor and on my bed and on my couch. I can't even express to you the way that this system has changed my life.  In all honesty I rarely give the laundry much thought. It went from being on the top of the list of recurring, relentless responsibilities (with food preparation and dishes) to being one of the background household tasks.  Every couple of days I spend some time down there sorting and folding the things that I really care about, but I can spend time on it as I want to, when I want to, for as long as I want to and walk away at any moment leaving the laundry organized, tidy and in a home. It's not perfect. I do have some clothes that end up wrinkled, there are a lot of shelves and baskets that have often been the extent of the decorating in my bedroom, and sometimes I get away with murder and stuff doesn't get taken care of as soon as it might (hence that basket of crap in the photo above) but the system works for me--I'm not a slave. It's not supposed to be perfect, it's supposed to be realistic. And my house gets to be tidy in the meantime. And organized. Which are my favorite. And I get to do laundry when I want to instead of because I have to. 

I felt compelled to share this with you.  It feels irresponsible to know about this and not tell anyone! Maybe you have something like this going on in your home already, maybe you are wondering why I think this is such a big deal and maybe this isn't a problem for you.  Please just ignore me and go on with your lives. Don't mind my little corner of the internet. It was such a huge problem for me and if there is a society of women who already have this answer, they were keeping it to themselves.  I was breaking and all of the help I could find--and there are an unprecedented number of answers--had to do with some version of keeping the old system and just doing it better.  I just don't think that works. At least it didn't for me.  I think the system itself is flawed because it demands perfection. This new system has unleashed a freedom in housekeeping across the board that I simply cannot quantify. The laundry is so big that freeing up this time and getting that crap out of my living space has left so much room in my life and in my head!  I clock out at night when the kids go down.  Is everything done?  No, not really, I can think of a plethora  of things I could do, but I don't have to in order to stay afloat.  My eyes aren't twitching and I'm not somewhere in Tuscany inside my head.  I'm in my own little living room with my own husband drinking a glass of 14 Hands that I picked up at Costco (you know, where they sell amazing shelves for a great price) and I'm about to start watching Project Runway.  There will be no laundry joining us. Not any more.


You may be thinking wow, that's it?  That's all you got?  Yep, that's it.  You waited days for it and that's it. If, like me however, this idea rocked your world and threatens to alter your very existence and you want to talk about it, you're in luck.  I LOVE to talk about it.  It's right up there with things like paint colors, clothes, skincare, and food.  There are so many more things to say about it (what if I don't have room for these shelves? What about dirty laundry? Won't this cost a lot of money to get set up? Won't this make packing and unpacking absolutely AMAZING??)  I'd love to say them all.  I like to say all the things. One of my friends reminded me of how many things I have to say about minivans, and I can go on for days about whole grains and cream blush. But we don't have to be done here if you don't want to. It's just coffee, there's always more.