Our laundry was a disaster and if answering three questions were
going to help us we would have been thanking anyone for any
advice. So I decided that it would be a goal of mine to be on
top of the laundry so whoever showed up whenever they showed up
at our house laundry would not be an obstacle on the way to the
kitchen.
First I need to go back a little ways. My wife of twenty seven
years and I have raised four children and held down our careers
in spite of the odds against it and we are still together and in
love. Our children three of which are grown, well almost,
twenty-four, twenty-one and nineteen are happy well adjusted and
on their way to becoming a positive contribution to society. We
still have a nine year old and the third grade is tougher than
we remember.
The twenty-one and nineteen year olds have moved out and have an
apartment five miles away. They are girls so that took away a
lot of the laundry and a lot of the laundry doers all in one
move. Our son twenty-one years old and our nine year old are at
home and believe me both contribute to the laundry in a big way.
Now you can imagine that with three teens and one toddler our
laundry was a disaster. We could never find the time or when we
could find the time we could not find the energy to get our
laundry done and put away.
Now our house by no means was dirty just cluttered with laundry,
no surface area uncluttered, mounds of laundry waiting to be
washed and another mound waiting to be put away. I remember four
or five laundry baskets lined up in the dining room and our kids
having the time of their lives pulling each other around in
them.
I tried every way including the military way to get everything
going in one direction but to no avail. Things just seem to be
out of control and no sign of returning to normal. So I was
going crazy and thought to myself that whenever I go to
someone’s house it looked like Better Homes and Garden, why
can’t we just get the laundry done? My poor wife would be
exhausted and be dragging around the house trying to get the
laundry picked up before she would pass out from total
exhaustion.
So finally I figured out what the problem was and it was
logistics. From this I will ask you three simple questions and
your answers will help you get ahead of the tornado and help you
keep up on the dreaded laundry. First of all it wasn’t until I
decided to not sweat it that it became easier.
Question number one, “Where are the socks?” You if you are like
me and my wife you have forty five unmatched socks at any given
time. I finally took those unmatched socks and threw them away.
We went to a discount department store and bought twenty four
pairs of the same socks in two size ranges each size range with
a different design and a big wicker basket that stays near the
laundry room. Everyone wears the same socks and all the socks
are rolled, yeah just like in the old days, in a ball. The socks
are in the wicker basket so no need to sort and put away in
drawers. We did eventually have to get two baskets to keep the
sizes similar as the kids grew. This alone was an incredible
time saver both in doing the laundry and in the morning when
every one was trying to find socks.
Question number two, “How many hangers do you own?” We were
trying to fold up tees and shirts and skirts and pants and
pajamas and putting them all in laundry baskets only to have
someone rifle though them to get something and mess up all the
folded clothes. It was frustrating and self defeating. One day I
called my wife while she was at a department store and asked,
“How much are those plastic hangers that don’t get tangled when
they are in a pile”, she said, “Ten for a dollar, why?” I just
told her to buy a hundred. Now we hang everything, drawers
aren’t stuffed full; laundry baskets are a thing of the past. I
even put up a bar in our laundry area where empty hangers are
hung waiting for the next shirt or pair of pants to be hung on
them. The closets are full and the floor is clear. Closets have
doors but floors are right out in the open this makes a big
difference.
Question number three, “How does the laundry get to the washing
machine?” This is the logistics problem and it really takes
thought. Most kids and men and the occasional women just leave
the clothes where they drop off the body. This is the hardest
part of the equation as I see it. Every room in my house has a
hamper or a basket of sort to put dirty laundry in. Some of you
lucky people have laundry shoots that deliver the dirty laundry
right to the laundry room. Well we are not so lucky so we had a
problem, how to get it all to the washing machine and in a way
that made it easier to sort and get in the washer without
creating a mountain of laundry right in the middle of the house.
Answer “Funneling”. This is usually a complicated system of
getting something from one place to another without it being
visibly noticeable and looking like a mess. At this point there
are categories of laundry and we’re not talking about whites and
darks and delicates and perm press. If you own Woolite you are
not the person I am trying to help. This article is for the
despaired laundry household, the one that on Saturday nine or
ten loads are not uncommon. You people out there who can do
laundry once a week and only need to do three loads don’t know
what its like for the rest of us but maybe you will some day so
keep reading.
Funneling is logistics like a giant company moving goods from
one place to another then to the customer. The more you know
about where the laundry is and in what stage it is at the easier
it will be to do it. Why have appliance companies not come up
with the washer that magically turns into a dryer when the wash
is done and dries the clothes without having to switch the load.
I would have paid a thousand dollars for that one. Back to the
chore at hand, logistics or funneling your laundry to the
machines.
I wrestled with this concept in two ways, one was even days of
the week would be assigned to two people and odd to two others
leaving Saturday and Sunday a free for all where it was open
laundry time with the machines. I also toyed with getting two
washers and dryers. Then I came up with the funneling technique.
First the categories, category one is clothes that need to be
worn for work or school, they are the highest priority wash.
This category of laundry is immediately upgraded to the closest
staging area of the laundry funnel.
Second category is underwear and socks and towels. This category
is the second highest priority. Third category is play clothes
and odds and ends like dishtowels and bed sheets etc. This
should cover all your laundry but feel free to change items to
different categories that more suit your family’s needs. There
is a fourth category that should me avoided and that is the, “I
just got to have these jeans washed right away”, category.
A family using this system should not have the fourth category
if you are working the system faithfully. Now stage laundry
baskets at inconspicuous places leading from the bedrooms and
bathrooms around the house. This may sound odd but compared with
what it looks like now give it a try. The final laundry basket
is at or in the laundry area. This is known as the “Current
Load” basket.
To start the funneling system you need to empty your washer and
dryer so install the one-hundred hanger process first and when
the washer is empty push the final load through the dryer. Now
you’re clear for the new process.
Backfill the laundry baskets with the categories the way set
forth and take each person in the household and explain to them
the process. Tell them that only towels and socks and underwear
can be put into the baskets in the bathroom and that their
clothes from category one need to be put into the baskets closer
to the laundry. Never allow the baskets to overflow, when they
are full move them to the next station. Meanwhile there is a
load of category one washing and that load is pushed through the
dryer and hung on hangers.
The hung clothes are hung by sorted rooms that they will need to
go to and your mantra for the first month will be, “Take your
clothes with you”. By the way do not take the time to turn
clothes that are inside out right side out just hang them that
way. This will teach your family to right side out the clothes
when they take them off and speed up the chore immensely. Same
with socks, be aggressive they will learn. Learning to be a
polite laundry creator is what is important; you’re not a bad
laundry doer if the people you are doing for are not good at
giving the product to you.
After a while what you will discover is that people will bring
their favorite clothes in category one to the closest basket to
the laundry area. Those who don’t will miss out on the next
load. If you focus on the category one clothes that incorporates
the hundred hangers concept you will find that category one will
be done with minimal effort.
Category two is the most time consuming because except for the
underwear no one really owns these items. Remember the sock
basket concept. Try to get the underwear right into the drawers
and to do this try rolling the underwear. This is how they do it
in the army. It takes up less space and is easier to keep the
drawer neat.
So here are some tips to remember: 1.Get the hangers. 2.Select
good locations for your baskets. 3.No clean clothes in baskets.
4.Hang everything that can be hung. 5.Install a bar that can
both hold empty hangers and ready hung clothes in the laundry
area. 6.Don’t right side out the clothes (this will eventually
fix itself). 7.Don’t wash a load bigger than what will dry in 45
minutes (this may take a little practice and will save money in
the long run). 8.Only use bleach on whites that don’t cost a lot
to replace. 9.If your laundry area is downstairs only let
category one laundry reach the laundry area basket when not
doing laundry and use the washer as a basket to build a load.
10.Tell your kids that if they don’t follow the process they
will not get their wash done. This is good for them and you are
not a bad parent no matter what they say.
We want to hear from you so feel free to write us with your
questions and comments; I would love to hear how you improved
your laundry problems.