3 Laundry Tips to Save You Time & Energy

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A white wicker basket full of colorful, dirty laundry

Before I even start this post I want to assure you I’m not going to tell you how often to do laundry. I’m not going to tell you to spend all day in your house once a week to get it all done at once. I’m not going to tell you to start a load first thing in the morning every day. You see, I firmly disagree that there’s a one size fits all approach to how often a family should do laundry. What I DO know is there are three things you can do to make your laundry system more efficient that will help you save time and energy when it comes to washing clothes. Because come on, it may be a must to do laundry, but we want to spend as little time as possible doing it right?

Tip #1: Don’t Separate Whites and Colors

Unless you have something new that may bleed or you need to run a load with bleach, don’t bother sorting whites and color. Wash in cool water and throw it all in there. I know there are die-hards out there that will disagree with me but for your standard wash and wear everyday clothes this approach works and saves sorting time. Toss it all in, save yourself the ten minutes of your life you would have spent sorting.

Tip #2: Wash Loads by Family Member

Each family member or bedroom should have their own hamper. We have one in the master bedroom, and one for each kid. Washing loads by family member saves you time because you’re not sorting through clothes when folding trying to figure out who’s clothes are who’s. This is a huge time saver if you have kids that are similar in size/gender like my three boys. When I wash my hamper I share with my husband it’s obviously easy to tell our clothes apart as I’m folding.

Which brings me to the second reason this makes life easier. When you get the clothes out of the dryer don’t toss them in the living room to fold-take them to the room they belong in so you can put them away directly after folding. Since you know who’s clothes they are this should be easy. Make stacks according to drawers as you fold then immediately put them away. No more stacks of laundry all over the house! You’re welcome.

If you want another great tip, check out my post on how and why to change your ceiling fan direction in summer and winter!

Tip #3: Wash Linens and Towels Separately

Tip 3 builds off of tip 2-washing linens and towels separately works in much the same way as washing family members separately in that it makes the folding and PUTTING AWAY (note that emphasis on actually putting the laundry away when you’re finished!) much easier and faster. Saving time=good.

Okay, I’m really interested in your thoughts on this-do you approach your laundry this way? Do you totally disagree? Let me know in the comments!

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28 Comments

  1. I’m very late to the party but agree with all of these! I’d add for #2 that kids older than preschool age can be responsible for folding and putting away their own laundry.

  2. I really appreciate your tip to organize your clothes in stacks according to the drawer that they will go into. My wife and I have a young son who doesn’t put his clothes away into his drawers when we wash his clothes for him. I will be sure to organize his clothes into piles to see if that helps him!

  3. These are some great tips for doing laundry. It’s great to know that whites and colors really don’t need to be separated. I have always done that, and it costs me extra money for each load!

  4. Melissa, my website didn’t send with my previous comment so I am going to resend it. Thanks again for your wonderful blog!

  5. Great Tips Melissa! I’d like to share that when I had five young children I created a hanging laundry bag , color coded for each child. They each had a day to do their wash. I later perfected the laundry bag to separate clothes, so that the kids learned how to sort and on wash day their clothes were already separated and ready to go!

    1. Fantastic tip Kristine-do you have a picture or blog post about the laundry bags you can share-especially interested in how you did the sorting per child, mine are almost ready to start sorting themselves, the older ones are just now learning to do their laundry independently.

  6. I’m with you and do all three!
    I also wash my kitchen linens separately too, and have a mini laundry hamper hidden in a lower kitchen cabinet. With a toddler, I go through more bibs and washcloths (one cloth per meal plus snacks!), add in my usual dish towels and that already is a load once every few days!

      1. Great tips! It’s nice to “get permission” to break the laundry rules! Every family has to find what works best for them. We’re a family of six so my goal was to be efficient & conscious of costs. Years ago I placed 3 hampers in our main hallway , which is accessible to everyone in our small ranch house. Everyone is responsible for bringing their laundry there daily & putting it into the appropriate hamper: one for darks, one for lights, and the other we call “essentials” which means socks, underclothes, linens or towels that need bleach. This way laundry is sorted and we wash larger but fewer loads than havig each person doing their own laundry. My kids rotate who has laundry duty that day. Putting it away does take time though, sorting everyone’s clothes. We use a makeshift closet rod in the laundry room to immediately hang clothes as they come out of the dryer & then distribute. Who knows–we may change it up & give your ideas a try! Something new for a new season of life.

  7. I also totally agree with you! I also throw in a Color Catcher dye trapping sheet by Shout if I have anything new that could fade. A quilter turned me on to this trick. When buying a lot of new fabrics of all different colors, it makes it easy to get them all washed at once pior to cutting and sewing. Thanks for your blog!!

  8. We have 3 adults in the house. I agree with the separate loads according to owner. It not only saves time when folding after the dryer but also fights over ‘who has my shirt, socks’ etc. (Hubs and son take the same size and have very similar polo shirts!) Linens and towels get washed the same way. I even store them in the appropriate rooms. DS actually assumed responsibility for his own laundry so that is a real time saver for me. I do separate according to whites/ lights since I do use hot washes for whites and linens. Different loads for darks/ work clothes that are stained. We do laundry one wash load a day, first thing so long as I have enough for a load.

  9. I go outside to do laundry – I never have enough whites to do one small load so I just separate all the whites and light colors along with all the underwear , and then another load for the jeans and darker clothing. All bed sheets go in a separate load.

  10. Woohoo! I love confirmation that I’m doing something right! 🙂
    I was hoping you could give me just a bit of advice though. My laundry tends to get stuck in the living room because we live in a townhouse. The washer/dryer is in the garage (lowest level), the living space is the middle floor, and the third floor has the bedrooms. Since there are usually multiple loads, the first load only makes it half way up the house to be folded and sorted in the living room. Any thoughts on how I can bypass that? Or any advice on the mental aspect of just sucking it up and carting each load up all the stairs? Thanks so much!

    1. Hi Lisa-I really feel strongly that you have to take the laundry all the way to the room it will end up with to fold and then IMMEDIATELY put it away (even though it’s a pain in your situation). You’re getting caught in the living room-don’t let it trap you…keep moving up the stairs!! ~Melissa

  11. Also: use a SMALL laundry basket/hamper for each family member. This works especially well when you separate out sheets/towels.

    1. Yes! That helps a ton-I realized that too when we moved here to England and the closets are so small, I had to use small baskets instead of huge hampers and they end up being perfectly sized for one load! ~Melissa

  12. I have always been too lazy to separate laundry and do it all together except for my husband’s work clothes. As a mechanic, he gets things greasy and they have to be washed on their own. I agree, putting it in the washer early in the morning is the key to getting it out of the way sooner. I have a load going right now. I also keep schedules for when I do laundry so I know exactly what day I will be washing. I keep schedules for all of my house chores. I clean early in the morning, certain things on certain days. The only thing that changes in my routine is which day i go grocery shopping. That depends on the weather and if we have money on that day. Sometimes I have to wait until my husband gets paid again.

      1. I also try to get it all done early in the morning so the rest of the day I can do what ever I want. I schedule an afternoon naps too and it’s just about that time now.

  13. I agree with you for the most part. But must point out that blue jeans continuously fade, therefore they must be loosing dye that would make whites and light colors dinghy. Maybe a note to wash blue jeans and very dark color such as black, navy blue apart from the white/light color load.

    1. I normally wash new jeans separately for a while but then after a while they get chucked in with the rest of things. I do bleach my whites to brighten them up every few months too, maybe that’s why I need to! Great point! ~Melissa

  14. I so totally agree with you. I have always used the separate persons basket to washer method. Once it’s done I leave the basket in each child’s room for them to take care of themselves. I do my toddlers laundry obviously. My husband has to do his own also. If he takes care of it, good for him, if not no skin off my back.

    1. My boys have to fold their own (as much as they can age appropriately) too Kristy. I had them start matching socks and folding washcloths at age 2! Best they learn early! ~Melissa

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