One Simple Change That’s Helping Me Tackle Laundry More Efficiently

My personality craves efficiency, so I’m constantly revising my routines to get day-to-day tasks done faster and easier. With every life change (i.e. new baby, new work load, new home, etc.) comes a change to how to efficiently get things done, and my laundry routine was one that needed to be overhauled after the birth of our third baby.

I’ve shared before that up until a month ago, I’ve been tackling our laundry load the same way for 5+ years: I would do one complete load every day.

Within an hour of waking up, I would gather the laundry from everyone’s rooms, start a load, transfer it to the dryer at some point that morning, and then at some point that afternoon I would take 15 minutes to put it all away. This worked for a long time.

After Jillian was born though, I found that there were more days than not when I would go to sleep with that clean pile of laundry not put away. I was still able to get the laundry washed and dried in the morning without a problem, but putting it away in the evenings fell to the bottom of the priority list.

I wasn’t even thinking about a way to revise this routine until I saw something on Pinterest that offered a new idea: wash and dry one load every evening and then fold it and put it away as soon as you can in the morning.

GENIUS.

So, this is exactly what I’ve been doing for about a month, and laundry has never felt like less of a burden.

• Sometime between 4-6 p.m. I gather the laundry and start a load.
• Either Jamie or I will then throw it in the dryer after dinner or before bed.
• In the morning I grab it all from the dryer and quickly put it away. (Sometimes I like to give myself a time limit and see how fast I can get it done. I’m weirdly competitive with myself like that. 12-15 minutes is realistic!)

When I looked at when I felt the most energized and productive through the day, it’s always in the morning between 5 – 9 a.m. That’s when I rock and roll and get things done the most efficiently. So saving the “easy” part of laundry (throwing it in the washer and dryer) for the evening time when I’m mentally check out for the day and doing the “tiresome” part in the morning (folding, hanging, and putting away) should have been an obvious switch to make. But it took scrolling Pinterest for this “life hack” to hit me over the head. 🙂

Anyway! Just wanted to share in case this little switcheroo might be applicable to some of your routines. 

PS: A review of our LG twin washer and dryer set

Let’s chat!

What daily routine(s) do you have an efficient system for that you swear by? Enlighten me!!