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Laundry.
It’s never ending. You get it all caught up and then the next day there’s more. Day after day, week after week. No matter what you do, it keeps coming.
I’ll be honest, laundry is one of my most tedious jobs. I don’t mind washing and drying the laundry, my struggle is folding it.
Mountains of laundry used to be a normal occurrence in my house. While I still don’t love to do laundry, I have found some tricks so that it’s not such a boring, time consuming job.
Do one batch of laundry per day
I try really hard to only do a single batch of laundry per day. It only takes ten to fifteen minutes to fold each batch, so by limiting it to one batch per day I never get overwhelmed with all of the folding.
Now, I’m not saying that you should do laundry every single day of the week!
Since I have the older kids do their own laundry I really don’t have enough other laundry for a load every day. I do laundry as needed but I break it up so that I don’t have to do laundry all day long.
So, for example, on Monday I do whites and on Wednesday I do the darks, but I don’t do both whites and darks on the same day. One batch per day and no more!
Fold laundry as soon as it’s dry
I really prefer to fold my clothes as soon as they are dry.
For one, they just smell nice and they’re warm and it is so much more pleasant. For two, if I fold clothes while they’re fresh from the dryer they don’t wrinkle! I’m not about to iron my t-shirts but I do like them to be reasonably wrinkle free.
Speaking of keeping clothes from wrinkling, buy low maintenance clothes that don’t wrinkle easily! A linen blouse may be beautiful, but I can’t bring myself to purchase a shirt that has to be ironed every single time I wear it. Also, knowing my life, it would get covered in muddy paw prints or sneezed on by a horse.
I try to choose clothes that can handle the honestly ridiculous amount of abuse I put them through. A canvas work coat may not be considered high fashion, but it lasts forever and washes up easily.
Fold laundry while you’re watching a show or listening to music
I don’t watch a ton of tv, but if I have a whole bunch of laundry to fold I will turn on my favorite shows and fold the mountain of laundry while I watch it. It makes a tedious job a bit more enjoyable.
Even if I only have a single batch to fold I will usually turn on some music to help the time go by a bit faster.
It usually only takes about ten minutes to fold and put away a batch of laundry. Ten minutes is about four songs, which really isn’t that long at all!
Make it a family job
If we’ve been out of town and everybody has a whole bunch of laundry to catch up on, I will make it a mandatory family activity.
My teenagers roll their eyes when I call it a laundry folding party, but the old saying that many hands makes light work is so very true! What would be an hour of folding if I did it alone is done in twenty minutes when everybody pitches in and helps.
Have older kids do their own laundry
Speaking of everybody helping, I have kids start doing their own laundry when they turn eight and they help fold laundry from the time they are two or three.
I’ll admit that it definitely makes my life easier when I don’t have to do everybody’s laundry, but I also think it goes a long way in teaching personal responsibility.
Laundry is a pretty important life skill. My kids may decide not to plant a garden or bake their own bread when they’re adults, but laundry is a fact of life no matter what.
While laundry will never be at the top of my list of fun chores, I’ve found that it doesn’t have to be quite so awful. It’s not going to go away anytime soon, so you might as well make it as enjoyable as possible!
What are your favorite tips for doing chores you hate? Comment below, I’d love to hear about it!
