How to Create a Laundry Room Schedule to Rock the New Year - Pt 2

[Continued from Part 1]

How Many Laundry-Doers Are There in Your House?

Another serious question is how many people do laundry. Is it a competition for the machines with regular schedule conflicts, or more like your partner sometimes pitches in to move loads and help you fold during a chat?

Roommates tend to conflict, so a laundry schedule is a great way to make sure all your Monday laundry is done for your roommate's laundry on Tuesday. Shared laundry means you can co-opt your family members into helping with laundry using the authority of the laundry schedule. Either way, get any other laundry-doers involved in making the schedule so it's optimized for everyone - and authoritative when finished.

What are the Best Times/Days to Do Laundry?

Everyone has best and worst times to do laundry. Maybe you're a before-bed folder. Or maybe you do 100% of the laundry on your off days and like it that way. What are the best days for you to spend some time on laundry? What are the best times of day to start, move, and fold the loads?

Doing Laundry In-Line with Other Tasks

Once you start timing your laundry tasks, you realize it doesn't take that long to do each piece, and 30-90 minutes of passive time while the machines run. This means you can use laundry to bracket other tasks and take care of the non-folding parts in-line with other chores.

For example, you can start a load before work, move it when you get home, and fold after dinner. Or you can start a load, do the dishes, move the load, go shopping, then come back and fold.

Things to Do Alongside Laundry Folding

The biggest time-consuming part of laundry is folding (especially if you iron), but this is not exactly a mind-consuming task. You can do other things. Many people find this is a great time to catch up on your TV shows or share a conversation with a fellow chore-doer. Students can go over their memorization charts while folding, and parents can talk their kids through homework time. Some people even get a small leg-based workout done with calf lifts and squats while folding - but that's a real over-achiever move.

Make Your Laundry Schedule Into a Weekly Checklist

With all the data in, it's time to make your laundry schedule. 

• Set out a weekly checklist based on days of the week. Decide which loads you will do on which days, and what time of day you will take care of each task.
• Try color-coding the loads and noting which steps (by number) you will do. This will make it visually easy to sort and track.
• Cross off laundry as you finish it, week by week. You can print multiple pages, use a whiteboard, or slip your schedule into a plastic sleeve to mark and clean week by week.

If you're a deep planner, mark which chores you do around laundry and during the breaks. If you're self-competitive, start noting your times and try to beat your best times for sorting and folding. Give yourself a score for how closely you keep to the laundry schedule and how many loads you get done as planned. If you have other laundry-doers, score them for household points as well to turn laundry into a game.

Adapt and Perfect Your System

Last but not least, hone your system. Use your real-world experience with the first laundry schedule to determine how it could be better in both practice and notation. Design a better-looking schedule that's easier to follow. Streamline your tasks to better suit your day and preferred order of operations.

Pretty soon, you'll have optimized your laundry so the schedule becomes a habit. You'll be making your best folding times, every time, with clean towels and favorite outfits available whenever you need them.

Looking for more ways to optimize your laundry system, from organization tips to an extra laundry sink to hand-wash garments? Here at Edesia Kitchen & Bath Studio, we have some wonderful ideas and items to share. Contact us today to explore.