Taming My "Piles of Ridiculousness" Part 1--Laundry

Oh yes, even your closets can look like this.

When I was first married and without children, I remember my sister-in-law warning me that I wouldn't believe the amount of laundry I would have to do once I had even one kid. I kinda laughed to myself and thought, "Yeah right. How big of a difference could one tiny body make?"

 A couple of years later after I'd had my first child, Trey, this same sister-in-law posted on Facebook that, "Laundry and dishes are never-ending piles of ridiculousness." I sat there looking at her post, probably wearing clothes that should've been washed days before but that I was still wearing because I had no clean clothes to change into, and humbly nodded and thought to myself, "You are so right! They are!"

Then I wept. Silently. Bitterly. Pathetically.

It is astounding how much laundry one little body can produce in a very short time! For various reasons, I would end up changing Trey's clothes at least five times a day the first four months or so. And now I have two little poop monsters sweet angels running a-muck creating 10 times more laundry than that! They're both still working out their potty training kinks which translates into lots of wet and sometimes even poopy clothing and bedding which equals even bigger "piles of ridiculousness" for me to handle. Plus, on top of that, my little Ally is such a girly-girl, she thinks she needs to change her outfit at least 10 times a day and have 5 blankets out at once just for kicks and giggles.

I don't know about you, but I, for one, have struggled greatly with knowing how to deal with this problem which even escalated to the point where we spent several weeks stepping over piles of dirty clothes to get to one of the four baskets of (hopefully) clean clothes and digging through them in order to get dressed each day because all of our closets and drawers were empty (In my defense, we reached this point during the first trimester of my third pregnancy earlier this year when I stopped doing pretty much everything but breathing and sleeping, so don't judge me).

But those days are no more!

I have finally figured out how I can stay on top of the laundry without it consuming all of my time, my life, and my sanity. I hope that the following tips can help you tame your laundry piles, too.

1. Change Your Mind about Laundry

This is the first and most important step to changing those "piles of ridiculousness" into manageable, organized piles that are actually your friends, not your enemies.

I used to complain to my husband that I just couldn't keep up with the laundry because it was never-ending. I never got a break. I'd work really hard one day to catch up on all of it just to have it all right back in the dirty pile a day or two later. I felt like it was impossible to ever get it all done.


And guess what? I was right.

It is impossible to ever get it all done. It is never-ending. So stop thinking that it isn't! I will never be able  to take a day off from doing laundry because I never take a day off from wearing clothes. Just like you have to shower every day, eat every day, get dressed every day, you have to do laundry every day. I kept expecting to reach an end to it all and then getting frustrated when it never came.
  
Stop expecting to see an end in sight. There isn't one.

So change your mind about it. Instead of making it a goal to get all of the laundry done, set the goal to get 1-3 loads done in a day. Instead of seeing it as something that has to be completely finished in order to cross it off your to-do list, see your smaller goal of a few loads as the end to that chore for the day, then triumphantly cross it off your list. You'll receive the satisfaction of a job well-done, and by repeating this process every day, you will always have clean clothes at the ready.

This ties in with Tip #2--

2. Don't Wash More than You Can Handle 

As I mentioned before, I used to take a day and wash as much laundry as I possibly could in an effort to get caught up with it all. After all, it's easy to throw another load into the washer when you're already in front of it putting the wet things into the dryer. It kind of seems silly not to, really. Then you won't have to think about it later.

But this actually often resulted in the same overflowing laundry baskets I had before I started, only this time, they were filled with clean clothes instead of dirty ones. Some of you may be thinking, "But the goal is to get the clothes clean, right? So at least you're achieving that." To that I would respond, technically ye-ess, but at the end of the day...not really, no. Sure it's great to have clean clothes, but if I have to spend 10 minutes digging through four baskets for a specific top to finally find it smashed, wrinkled, and unwearable on the bottom of one of them, then no, I'm not achieving my goal. My goal is to have clean, wrinkle-free clothes that are ready to be worn and within easy reach. The only way to do that is to actually put the clothes away where they belong in their closets or drawers. If they never end up there, then I have frustratingly missed my goal. Close but no cigar.

So now I've developed a system where I'm able to actually get the clothes folded and put away, and it's real simple. Are you ready for this? I actually fold them and put them away. The trick, though, is to not wash more than I can handle folding in one day. On my washing marathon days, I would always plan on sitting down on my bed at the end of the day and fold everything and put it away all at once. But after spending so much time on laundry all day already and then seeing the massive amounts of clothing awaiting me...well, my back hurts just thinking about how long it's going to take me to accomplish that task.

So I would put it off until tomorrow, then the next day, and then soon enough, the baskets of clean clothes are nearly empty, and it's time for me to have another washing marathon because the dirty clothes are now inundating the floor, all-the-while my closets remain clothesless. It's a very frustrating cycle to get caught up in. Can anyone relate?

All right. Washed, dried, and folded. 3/4 of the way there. Now to just get you to your drawers...

So now, instead of washing 4-6 loads a day, I stick to only 1 or 2, possibly 3 if one of the loads is something easy to fold like towels or jeans or if I really need something washed that can't wait until the next day. How I accomplish the actual folding of them leads me to my next tip--

3. Adopt the "Do It Now" Philosophy

Like I said above, I used to wait to fold my clothes until the end of the day when I could do it all at once after my kids have gone to bed. But as I've already illustrated, this tactic wasn't really working for me. For one, I'm tired at the end of the day. Once those kids are in bed, all I want to do is veg out on the couch to my new Netflix addiction. Plus, I'm not able to put all of the clothes away because I don't want to risk waking them by going into their room and opening their drawers and rifling through hangers. So there their clothes sit, folded neatly in a basket, all night. And then, morning comes, along with my children who are attracted to that neatly organized thing which they must destroy! before they can possibly even think about doing anything else.

Laundry fail again.

So now I "do it now", meaning as soon as I pull it out of the dryer, I fold it and put it away. You know, it really doesn't take very long to fold a single load of laundry and put it in its place. 10 minutes maybe. 20 for the really little pieces 'cause, you know, you can fit a whole lotta onesies in that big ol' washing machine. So unless I'm in the middle of something like cooking dinner or headed out the door, I can spare 10 minutes pretty much any time of the day. Out it comes, and away it goes.

This also helps to keep my clothes from getting wrinkled because they aren't sitting squashed in a basket all day. Bonus!

4. Fold it on an Elevated Surface 

The next trick that helps me achieve "doing it now" is folding it on an elevated surface. My mom always folded our laundry on her bed, and I've always liked this method because there's lots of space to lay it all out on plus I can watch TV at the same time, or in my current situation, Netflix on my laptop. But folding laundry on a bouncy surface with little ones running around is just asking for trouble.

Now I keep the tops of my washer and dryer clear of clutter and use that as my folding surface. It's harder for the kids to climb up there to "help" plus everything is within reaching distance, so I can protect it from them more easily than when it's spread across my king-sized bed. And another bonus, my dryer doesn't become a dumping ground for everything under the sun. The shelves right across from it don't look so hot, but at least one surface looks neat and clean.

Ahh, so easy to fold clothes without little ones flinging them around the room so I have to refold them again and again and again...

  
5. Cut Out the Excess

Minimizing the amount of clothing you need to wash will also save you a lot of stress, energy, time, and money. I keep a box on the top shelf of my kids' closet for clothing they've outgrown. As I'm folding laundry, I keep an eye out for things that I've noticed don't quite fit them anymore then toss it in the box to keep it out of circulation and ready to move to storage once the box is full.

The same goes for my husband's and my own clothing. Occasionally going through our things and setting apart anything that doesn't fit, is worn out, or is no longer our style will also help keep "laundry" and "ridiculousness" out of the same sentence.

If filling your storage with a bunch of unneeded clothing doesn't appeal to you or if you're done adding children to your family, then have a box readily available to collect items you want to sell or donate instead of store.

6. Have Adequate Storage to Hold Your Dirty Laundry

I think it's also important to note that having enough baskets to hold your dirty laundry will help you keep it separated and organized so you can quickly toss a load into the wash without having to search the globe for like items to make up one load. I was trying to make 2 hampers and 3 laundry baskets work for our massive amount of laundry, the hampers for dirty clothes and the baskets for clean ones. Both clean and dirty clothes kept spilling over onto the floor mixing together, and I'd waste so much time, money, and energy rewashing things over and over before we even got to wear them. We definitely needed a new system.

So we bought a few more hampers and now have one each for kids' clothes; towels, washcloths and rags; linens and blankets; and mine and my hubby's clothes. We also have a hamper for each of our bedrooms and an extra one for when we clean up the living room which always has clothes scattered around it for some reason.

Our lovely hampers and my new best friends. :)

Having hampers in our rooms has made a huge difference because we're all able to just throw our clothes in there instead of letting them pile up on the floor or our end table. And the kids can whine about having to walk clear down the hall and through the kitchen to get to the laundry room to put their clothes away, but there's not much excuse when it's right next to their bed. Every day or so, I take the hamper to the laundry room and sort the items into their appropriate hampers there (my bedroom hamper always ends up with items other than clothes, like towels or linens).

I've also found that having a basket and a garbage can in the living while we clean up makes that chore so much easier on all of us, so the extra hamper has really come in handy. We save ourselves a lot of effort when we don't have to make a zillion trips back and forth to put clothes in the laundry room and garbage in the kitchen. The kids are much more eager to help pick up with this simple strategy than anything else I've tried! And again, once everything's picked up, I take the basket to the laundry room and sort everything there. It's a great system that has been working really well for us.

7. Get Your Kids (and Husband) Involved

Now this one may sound like I'm contradicting myself from earlier when I said to fold your clothes away from your kids, but that's not what I mean by getting them involved. Let me explain:


I've had a hard time keeping one little girl by the name of Ally out of her drawers. She thinks she needs to change her clothes at least 10 times a day whether her clothes are dirty or not, and in order to do that, she needs to throw everything out of her drawer and onto the floor so she can properly see what's available to her. (Literally as I was typing this paragraph, she said she needed to change her clothes and headed to her bedroom to do so. She's been wearing her current outfit for only about an hour.) Add that to all the other items scattered around the house, and it's just too much for anybody to handle by themselves and keep their head.

Why yes, I did put this outfit together all by myself. Would you like to see another? Hang on a sec. I'll be right back.

So now I have my kids help me put their clean clothes away on a regular basis. I may not like their help to fold the clothes, but they can help me put them in their drawers once I'm done. I think this helps them see how much work it takes to take care of them and increase their respect for them. And since I've started doing this with them, she has been much better about leaving them in the drawers and off her floor.

I also remind them throughout the day to pick up their clothes and put them in their basket in their room when they get that hankerin' to change. It's easily accessible, and I think they feel a sense of ownership over it, like that's their basket, so they're almost eager to use it when I ask them to help out.

I've also had to remind my husband a time or two to use the hamper in our room. This way I don't have to sort through his things wondering what's dirty and what's not or pick up all his clothes off of the floor. I've also asked him to make sure his socks aren't balled up when he throws them in so that I don't have to go through them one-by-one and undo them because they don't get properly cleaned or dried in that state. Having him be more conscientious of that saves me time and effort up front and keeps me from having to rewash them.

It may seem like a small thing for me to do these things for him, but that means it's also a small thing for him to do them for me. And remember, I am pregnant and in my third trimester, so bending down to the floor isn't as easy of a task as it used to be. ;)

And finally, my last tip of the day--

8. Let it Go

Now I feel like breaking out in song, but for your sake, I'll refrain. My last tip has to do with more mind-changing, especially where kids are involved.

I used to get so frustrated and upset when I'd finish a chore, like putting laundry into the kids' drawers, and then turn around to see they've ruffled through it, tried on socks, got them covered in dog hair, and then threw them off and grabbed another pair. You know, things like that.

Now I've learned to just let those things go. It's more important to me that they are able to grab their own clothes out of their drawers and dress themselves, especially Clothes-Fettish Ally, than to have their drawers neatly organized. That means I have to let my own perfections go. Their drawers don't have to be perfect and dog-hair free (their clothes are just going to get covered in dog hair after they've been wearing them for 2 seconds anyway). As long as their clothes are in their drawers, it doesn't really matter the state of them.

So I don't spend all day refolding and reorganizing their clothes and drawers because it really doesn't matter at this point in time. As long as I model the correct way to put their clothes away, they'll get it eventually when they're more mature and responsible and actually care about things like neatness (they are only 3 and 2, after all).

It may only last a second, but their drawers look so nice with neatly folded clothes. So much better than empty!

When I get motivated to make a change and be a better housekeeper, the feeling and new habits usually last for about a week, then I go right back to doing things the way I was before. But it's been about 2 months now with my new laundry habits, and I'm still going strong. My closets and drawers are full with clean clothes, I have towels and wash cloths in my bathroom and kitchen, and I have linens ready to swap out on my bed when necessary.

It's been such a relief and has saved me so much stress by having these things readily available. And it really wasn't that hard to make these small changes. Once I changed my mind about a few things, it's been relatively easy to keep up with the daily maintenance.

Does that mean I fold every bit of laundry and put it away that same day? No, it doesn't. But skipping one or two loads a day and adding them to the one or two that I do the next day is a lot easier to catch up on than adding four loads to four more that I'll try to fold all at once.

Does it mean that I do laundry every single day, Sunday-Saturday, each and every week? It most certainly does not. I believe in keeping the Sabbath day holy which means, in-part, to me, no chores. Seriously, no grocery shopping, no vacuuming, no toilets, and no laundry (I mean, if the Lord not only gives us permission but commands us to take a break from our daily tasks, why wouldn't every mother take full advantage of that?). And there are also days that I'm just too caught up with other things like running errands or spending the day out and about with my hubby and kids. So no, I don't do it every day, but I do shoot for 5-6 days a week. 

Yay for clean clothes! Thank you, Mommy, for being so awesome!

I hope you find these tips helpful in taming your own "piles of ridiculousness", and now that I've got this one under control, it's time to tackle the other one--Dishes. Once I get it figured out, I'll write Part 2 of this series and let you know how it goes!. ;)