As a mother of eight, married 20 years, dwelling happily with ten lively and creative people…..laundry is not something I can easily (if ever) escape.
For years and years I have tried systems, designated wash days of the week, even emergency trips to the Laundromat with a bucket of quarters in tow.
There were many times my mother would visit and peek in at my laundry pile, shake her head and say “why don’t you let me take this home and help you?”, not knowing that I had just finished 40 loads and she was looking at my pile on a GOOD day.
I had never, ever arrived at that elusive yet blissful land called “DONE”. I really, honestly didn’t know there was such a place. A land where nothing in the hamper lives, nothing in the corner recesses of the boy’s closet hides.
No ‘clean’ or ‘folded’ piles sit for days at a time
Everything is 100% totally and completely ‘DONE’. I call it…bringing Laundry to ZERO. It’s all washed, sorted, folded, hung up, and put away…DONE.
Well, this may sound corny, but in November of 2011, I attended a seminar on Workflow management called Getting Things Done® by David Allen.
My company, where I work part-time helping homeschooling parents, sent me there with the hopes I could one day train other moms how to organize the “STUFF” of life: all that we do and one day hope to do.
At the seminar, surrounded by many corporate executives, we were paired off and I was challenged to pick a project that was bothering me that I wanted to be able to look at, when it was finished, and see a wild-successful completion.
My partner chose a company merger….I chose my laundry. Silly, I know. But that was the ONE thing I could not ever get on top of, no matter how many color-coded charts I posted, teens I trained in sorting, or toddlers I taught to search high and low for unmatched socks.
About this time, after brainstorming at the seminar about my new project plans, I was introduced to the radical new way of doing laundry! It is true, that sometimes all it takes is to change ONE single element in your system, your routine, that will make you happy every time you use it, and inspire you to work.
After incorporating this amazing new way of doing laundry it allows me to never ever get behind on laundry because I have run out of soap (a problem I didn’t realize happened so frequently). I’m able to wash our clothes with no hot water, and they come out smelling completely fresh and clean every single time.
And, I am so happy to say, that I have now visited the Laundry land called “DONE” many times. I’m not there today, but hopefully by tomorrow I’ll visit there again.
Laundry Mom~Erin♥
Ok so I know this post is now in the archives, but could you please share what the secret to this Zero Laundry is please? This is my biggest struggle in a large family too.
Michelle, so sorry for the late reply. I bought a product called The Laundry Pure, made by Vollara. It is worth every penny! Allows you to wash laundry with no soap and only cold water and leaves the clothes smelling fresh and clean. Another tip I implemented was just purging all the clothes each child had. I downsized dramatically for my own sanity. They each had a large bucket, and all their clothes fit in one bucket. Church dresses were hung up, everything else in a bucket. I have 6 girls and 2 boys, my older kids (over 13), are responsible for their own stuff, it was my younger kids that I had to purge well. Hope this helps!