Laundry Tips for Your Organized Home

As with any organizing tips, laundry tips for your organized home are suggestions that help you to control the inputs and outputs of the laundry process.

Controlling inputs requires an understanding of how much, how many, and how often clothing and linens need to be laundered.

Controlling outputs requires an understanding of how to collect all those items once they are washed and how to store them in a way that allows for easy access when they are needed.

Of course laundry does not end with washing and drying clothes. If you want to get control of laundry day you also have to fold the laundry and then put it away in a manner that is suitable for your needs and results in control!

See the videos on laundry folding techniques for t-shirts and towels and more.

Ask the Expert

Organization-Makes-Sense: - "Dianne, what laundry tips can you offer that will help the average household manage their laundry?

Dianne - "Well generally I would say try to make sure that you do not have too much stuff to launder!
In the hotel industry of course we have to keep rooms and beds clean because it is a commercial enterprise and we have to be prepared for all contingencies because we simply cannot afford to run out of linen. So we keep a good supply on hand"

Organization-Makes-Sense: - "So how much is enough then for a linen supply for the average organized home?"

Dianne - "We have a formula that is used for calculating how much linen is needed. We call this the par 3 system. Generally every bed should have at least three sets of linen. One on the bed, one in the laundry, and one in storage. We use this system to calculate the numbers needed for our linen supply."

Organization-Makes-Sense: "So I should have three sets of linens for each bed in my house?"

Dianne -"No, not at all. For an organized home I would suggest a par 2 system. So your household linen supply should be two complete sets of linen for each bed in the house. One set on the bed and one in storage."

Organization-Makes-Sense: - "Only two sets of linen per bed?"

Dianne - "Yes that is plenty. Any more than that and you will end up with too much. Then you will have to store the extra and that takes up valuable space. Instead of an organized home you will just have organized storage. Your home should be for living. If you keep the linen supply down to par 2 system you will have more space for storing items that are used more regularly."

"Of all the organizing tips for managing your linen supply my best suggestion would be to keep it simple! If you have more than two sets of linen or if you have incomplete linen sets consider purging your linen supply so that you have only two complete sets of linen for each bed. There is no reason for the average organized home to be more prepared than a commercial hotel. And of course the less linens you have the easier it is to control the linen supply."

Organization-Makes-Sense: "Well here at organization-makes-sense we understand how important control is because Control is the Goal! is our motto!

So there you have it, laundry tips from the expert!

More laundry tips from our expert Dianne:

when you strip the bed on laundry day get out that extra set of linen and make the bed right away before you even leave the room

store the entire extra set of bed linen inside a pillow case. Use either an extra orphaned pillowcase or one from the linen set

keep that extra set of bed linen in the room with the bed that it belongs to. Rolling drawers under the bed are good for this, or keep it on a shelf in the closet or in a drawer in the dresser

a small surplus of linen in your linen supply should get you through those contingencies where you might need extra linens. These circumstances might be when someone in the house is sick or if there is a child in the house that is still wetting the bed at night.

do not even bother folding t-towels or dish cloths, that's a waste of time. Throw them into a plastic grocery bag right out of the dryer (one for tea towels - one for dish rags) and then hang each bag on a hook. Each time you need a clean one just grab it out of the bag! If you have the room you could use a rigid storage container for this, but whatever you use an open top improves accessibility.