I’m no laundry expert, I usually have a load or two patiently waiting for their turn in the washer but, laundry isn’t something I dread and it rarely builds up.

I have three tips and I hope you have more.

1. Start a load right when you get up.

Every morning I come down the stairs with a basket of dirty clothes in my hand {my boys or I emptied it the night before} I go straight to the laundry room {before I get coffee or anything} and start a load.  My husband usually sees this and I think some guilt mechanism kicks in so he starts the lunches, its a brilliant plan.

Then later in the morning I move it to the dryer and by the afternoon it is folded and separated into the 3 stacks for the minions to take upstairs.  I just lay it in folded piles or baskets by the stairs and remind them to take the clothes up and put theirs away.  It sure does help once your children are old enough to pitch in.

2. Know when to hold them, know when to fold them

Our two youngest share a room so they have a bigger dresser for their folded clothes and we also ended up with this one little nightstand dresser.  It’s filled with PJ’s.  I RARELY buy new jammies. Old T shirts and thrifted bottoms are a plenty round these parts.  I’m always happy when I see pjs in the laundry folding pile because that’s one thing I never fold.  I just kind of clump it or roll it and put it with the rest of the folded laundry pile for that room and they know to throw it in the drawer.  Also, I recently went through and purged lots of jammies.  They really only need about 3 bottoms each, too many options and I end up with more to wash.

3. Start a sock basket

My sister just reminded me about the sock basket.  Baskets again, sorry.  My boys put their socks on right before they put their shoes on, so it makes sense to have all of their socks downstairs.  I don’t match up and turn their socks right side out, they are big enough to figure that out on their own.

What are your laundry tricks?