Laundry Day - How to Get Organized with the Entire Family

Laundry day is everyone's responsibility.

These ideas for how to get organized include organizing tips for getting the whole family involved in laundry chores.

Laundry should be done regularly but it doesn't have to be done everyday.

If you want to know how to get organized for laundry chores then get the entire family involved.

Having your children care for their own clothing and linen items builds personal organization and planning skills and teaches self reliance.

Organizing Tips for the Entire Family on Laundry Day

You wear it--you wash it - teach your children how to do laundry and start by having them take responsibility for their own clothes and bedding. There are very few children who would not love to operate a washing machine. If they can use a computer, play a video game or master the TV remote they can use a washing machine and a clothes dryer!

Of course the you wear it-you wash it rule goes for Mom and Dad too! Children will not take this rule seriously if both parents do not follow it!

Talk about laundry as a family responsibility - talk about laundry chores and responsibilities with your children at family meetings. Allow the children to express their feelings about how they would like to manage their laundry day chores.

Set a regular laundry day - Your laundry should not be in control of you, you should be in control of the laundry. Set a regular cycle for doing laundry. For example you might want to do laundry once per week or once every five days but set a regular time and stick to it. If there are more than three people in the house set a regular laundry day for each person. Schedule laundry as an item on each child's calendar or chore chart.

Provide supervision as appropriate to the child's age - safety first! Children can manage many of the tasks of laundry day, but they must be supervised if there is risk involved. Very young children should not be allowed to operate the washing machine as the spinning agitator can be very dangerous. Some chemicals used in the laundering process (like bleach) might be too dangerous for them to handle. Providing children with the opportunity to learn how to do their own laundry does not absolve adults of the responsibility to protect them and keep them safe.

Get user friendly laundry hampers - Teach your children how to get organized on laundry day by making sure they get their own laundry to the washing machine. This means that they have to be able to move the laundry hamper on their own. Small children might do better with a laundry bag they can drag on the floor, whereas a teenager could manage a taller more rigid laundry hamper that uses vertical space.

Understand your own needs - how much is enough? - You will need to make sure that you have enough clothing and linens to see you through one laundry cycle. For example: if you do laundry once per week and you wear one set of underwear per day you will need at least 8 pairs of underwear to get you through the week. If you exercise and go through two pairs of underwear per day you will need more.

Change one bed per laundry cycle - Do not try to change all the beds on the same day this is just too overwhelming. If you have a 4 bedroom house and there are 4 beds in the house then doing one bed per week means that every bed gets changed once per month. There is really no reason except for personal comfort to change the bed any more often. Showering everyday uses fewer resources than laundering bed linen every week so practicing good personal hygiene can save you time and energy.

Reduce the amount of clothing you have to launder - if business shirts need regular washing get them done commercially. You will be much more pleased with the result!

Purge closets regularly. Involve children in the regular closet purge and get them used to letting go of material goods. A great time for this is back to school. Have the children involved in purging their closets and drawers before the new clothing items for the school year are added.

Re-evaluate your shopping habits - most clothing in your laundry hamper comes from your purchasing habits. Try to determine if you are using shopping as therapy or because you or someone in the family really needs something.

Regularly edit your wardrobe - If you buy something new then get rid of something you already have. If you standardize some of the staples in your wardrobe you can just replace them annually.

Sort at the source - have two laundry hampers instead of one in your bedroom and use one for lights and one for darks. Teach children how to sort using light and dark criteria. Children generally love sorting things and you can make a game of it.

Keep hangers handy in the laundry room - this makes it so much easier to hang garments that come directly out of the dryer and doing so saves them from getting wrinkled.