My secret weapon with laundry is to not even have a laundry day—I just work a load into my daily routine. But even I am sometimes faced with a mountain of laundry, whether I’m back from a trip, getting back to the routine after a busy period, or, heck, I just decided to save it all for laundry day! Don’t worry—these are my 5 laundry tips for speeding things along, whether you’ve got a little, or a lot.

Always Be Prepared

Don’t let a short stash of supplies stop you before you even begin. Be sure to add detergents and other laundry additives (vinegar, baking soda, essential oils etc.) to your shopping list when they’re just about empty. Consider keeping an extra box or bottle on hand—especially when things happen to be on sale! In my experience, these items always seem to run out right when you need them most.

laundry stains

Pretreat Stains Immediately

The sooner you attack a stain, the more likely it is to lift out completely, so waiting days, or even weeks to get rid of it is not going to be your friend. I recommend keeping an effective pre-treater wherever you take off your clothes at the end of the day. I keep one in my purse, as well as one in the kitchen, to deal with any meal-prep stains. A hydrogen peroxide stain stick or even some dish soap rubbed into most stains will be all you need. However, be sure not to add more than 3 or 4 dish-soap-treated items to the washing machine at once! Dish soap foams up quite a bit and too much can overwhelm your machine with suds.

Use a Tri-Sorter

You don’t need to spend time and brain power deciding what to wash with what! Make your hamper do the work for you—invest in a tri-sorter for clothing. These have one compartment for whites, one for lights, and one for darks. To increase efficiency even further, hang a mesh delicates bag off the side where you can stash lingerie that will be washed right in the bag.

sorting socks

Make Sock Sorting a Snap!

If you hate the chore of finding and matching up socks, get yourself a second mesh delicates bag. Keep all your socks together in this bag, and then toss it in the washing machine when it’s full. This way so you’ll never have to wait for that stray sock that got stuck to the inside of your sweatshirt to finally shake free.

Tack Laundry on to Another Task

Getting back to my earlier point—laundry is a fairly inactive task. If you pair it up with another chore you’ll make the whole process more active. Throw a load in the washing machine while you have your breakfast. Once you’re done and cleaned up, you’ll find that the load is done and can be transferred to the dryer. By the time you’re ready for the day, you can toss it into a clean basket and bring it to your room to fold when you come home in the evening. Pair the folding up with something you enjoy—listening to a podcast or watching TV at the end of the day. Done, and done!

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11 COMMENTS

  1. People think I’m strange, but I sort my clothes by how quick they are to fold. That way I can do the quick loads after work and save the more labor-intensive loads for the weekend. I put a load in the dryer when I leave for work. I toss it when I get home to get the wrinkles out, and fold. I find in order of quickest to longest:
    Towels/microfiber cloths (a separate load, of course)
    Sheets
    Pants
    Socks/Underwear
    Shirts
    -I have a load each of undershirts and regular shirts. These are the two I normally do on the weekend.

    I have to admit that I have enough laundry to be able to do a full load of each category a week.

  2. You can save a lot of time by only having one kind of socks. I buy large packages of black and white socks and I haven’t sorted socks in years, just dump them in the sock drawer and grab two of the same colour when I need them.

  3. I alternate loads. So I will do a load of towels, and while that dries, I do the smaller load of clothing that doesn’t go into the dryer. Dryers take about twice as much time as the washer.

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