Getting Organized: Laundry

A few months ago, I had the privilege of speaking at our Mom's In Action Group at our church. I spoke about "Servanthood" in the role of wife and mom. I really had a great time speaking with the ladies and sharing with them what God has done in my life and what He is currently doing. One topic that I spoke about was laundry.

Laundry is a job/chore that is never completely done. You may "catch up" one day, but before the night is over, there are tops, bottoms, socks, etc. that are placed back into those empty hampers!!! The piles begin to form, and the mole hill turns into a mountain...if you don't stay on top of it! Sometimes, I have felt like "I just need a break" from doing laundry...unfortunately that break turns into a week or two...or until someone runs out of underwear, or my husband gently tells me that he has nothing to wear to work the next day! OOPS!!! "Are you sure that there is NOTHING that you can wear tomorrow, hunny????" I really do want my husband to look nice the next day at work, so I throw something in the washing machine and notice the piles that are in front of me, waiting for their turn to take a spin in the machine.

There has to be a better way to stay on top of this "chore"...without passing it off to another family member...although that is not a bad idea, however my 2 and 4 year old sons only know how to stuff the clothes into the washer and press the start button...I need to do the soap!

Flylady had a great idea - do one load a day, from start to finish. This means: wash, dry, fold and put away. Great idea, seriously, but somehow, this really did not work for me. (and I really do like Flylady's ideas!). I needed something more, but I did not know what.

Recently, I have been motivated to get more organization in my life and declutter my house so that I can start putting my dreams into reality. I have been praying and asking God to help me in this area - to stay motivated and to give me ideas and inspiration to get these things done, and I believe that he helped me do this!

So, last week, I decided that I need to come up with a laundry schedule that specified what would be washed on each day of the week...and leave the weekends free from laundry! I also decided that I needed to tackle my mountain and "catch up" with all of my laundry...so I ended up doing about 15 loads of laundry! I could not believe it!!! Now, that did included things like winter jackets that were waiting to be washed and stored away and tablecloths and various things like that...but still! WOW!

So, here is a peek at what my weekly list looks like:

Today was the first day, and I was really happy to get through my list and "be done" for the day. Tomorrow is a new day and I will be washing whites/lights...and there is a blanket that I took off of my son's bed that I want to wash and store for the summer, so I think that I will throw that in too.

I am really excited about my new schedule, and it seems like it is something that I will be able to easily keep up with.

So, what will my next organization project be...stay tuned!