Laundry

I recommend doing laundry daily, depending on the size of your family. If you have at least 3 kids, do some every day. For example: baby laundry is handled differently than adult laundry. You shouldn’t use fabric softener for baby laundry, but it’s fine to use with adults’ clothes. So choose a day to do only baby laundry. Choose a different day to do adult laundry. Do your oldest child’s laundry on a given day (maintain that day on a weekly basis), your next child’s laundry the following day, etc. If you keep up on it, it won’t become a Mt. Vesuvius and overwhelm your home again.

If you find laundry tedious, sort and pre-treat while you’re watching TV, for example. It takes moment to pluck a piece of clothing out and check it for stains, squirt it with pre-treater, and then put it in the dirty basket, ready for the wash. Folding can be done the same way. Once it’s folded, I recommend putting it on the recipient’s bed (not in the basket). This way, it must be put away before retiring for the night and you won’t live from a laundry basket full of clean clothes.

If you have things that need ironing, do it when the laundry is clean and hang it up. Be done with the task and make sure that clean, ready-to-wear shirts or blouses are smiling at you when you walk in the closet in the morning.