The Simple Laundry System That’ll Change Your Life

When you’ve got kids (that dirty their clothes like coal miners) or an aversion to folding clothes, laundry can feel downright oppressive. Because it seems like you will never ever be on top of on top of the piles of clothes that seemed to grow like a science experiment gone wrong.  

But this simple laundry system will make it so much easier to stay caught up in just 15 minutes a day. And when piles of laundry aren’t haunting you, it’s going to make keeping your home clean and tidy a whole lot more manageable. 

In fact, implementing this system is one of the easiest ways to conquer overwhelm and feel more organized and in control.

DOING LAUNDRY ONCE A WEEK IS A WASTE OF TIME

Like many people, I used to do laundry once a week. I would start my Saturdays gathering and dividing laundry. My floors would be covered in piles of laundry to be washed.

(Piles my kids would, of course, trample and destroy…)

And throughout the entire day, I’d be throwing loads in the wash, then the dryer, folding what I could, and then putting it all away. And it took ALL DAY.

But on Saturday night, I’d feel so good because for one sweet second, I was totally caught up on laundry.

But by Tuesday, that feeling was long gone because there’d already be stacks of laundry to do. 

That’s why I love this laundry system so much. Because it takes up less time than weekly laundry and you’re basically always caught up.

No more piles of laundry covering every surface of your home.

No more wearing a swimsuit because you ran out of clean underwear.

No more piles of dirty and clean laundry getting mixed up and so you have to clean it all again.

And in this post, I’m going to go through step-by-step how to set up a laundry system that you can manage in just 15 minutes a day.

Ready? Let’s do this!

THE BASICS: THE 15 MINUTE LAUNDRY SYSTEM

While we’ll get into the nitty gritty of how to collect, sort, and fold laundry, the most important part is simply to do 3 simple tasks each day, which take about 15 minutes:

• Wash a load
• Fold & put away load from yesterday
• Move load to dryer

Honestly, doing those 3 simple things alone everyday completely changed everything for me. But while this system is super simple, DON’T  let the simplicity fool you into thinking it’s not going to work.

I can’t tell you how many people that I’ve shared this system with who’ve expressed skepticism….only to tell me later, quite happily, that it really works. 

THE SIMPLE LAUNDRY ORGANIZATION SYSTEM

Now onto the nitty gritty! Follow these steps to build your own personal laundry routine that works for you and your family.

1. Schedule 15 Minutes of Laundry a Day

The first step to setting up your laundry routine is schedule when you’ll do it every day. Building this into your schedule is the first step to actually making it a habit. And the more specific you get, the more likely you are to follow through. 

Because if you don’t nail down when you’ll do it, it’s probably not going to happen.

And remember, the 3 main tasks you’ll start with are:

• Wash a load
• Fold & put away load from yesterday
• Move load to dryer

Use a Trigger

A great way to start any new habit is to schedule it following a trigger. A trigger is just something you already have built into your routine. And this habit you already have will serve as the trigger to start your 15 minutes of laundry.  

For example, when I first started doing 15 minutes of laundry everyday, I did it in the morning first thing after coming home from my morning workout–whether the gym or a run–coming home after my workout was my trigger.

So you’ll want to think about when might be a good time and also what might serve as a good trigger for you. 

Experiment With What Works

And to find the right time for you, you may need to experiment a bit. 

For example, when I first started this system, I liked getting it out of the way first thing.

However, I’ve since moved it to the evenings. As I work from home most of the time, and I am at my most mentally agile in the mornings, I decided that I needed my morning hours for brain-heavy work tasks. So now I fit in daily laundry as part of our evening cleaning that happens before our bedtime routine. 

My new trigger is to do laundry while my kids are picking up their rooms before bed. And the bonus of doing it at this time is that my kids can help out.

Experiment with what time works best for you. And once you’ve figured out when it’s time to…

2. Set up a Reward or Motivation

While you may be thinking “Wait, what does this have to do with laundry?” the truth is that the most amazing laundry system on the planet won’t work if you don’t follow through.

And if you’re not a fan of doing laundry, suddenly doing it everyday isn’t going to come naturally.

So what could you do to actually look forward to your laundry routine every day? 

Two possible options:

• pair it with an enjoyable task
• give yourself a little reward once it’s done

Like having a “trigger,” this is an important key to starting any new habit–and that’s to give yourself some sort of motivation so you look forward to either the task itself or being done with the task. 

For example:

• No morning coffee or breakfast until you’ve done the laundry.
• Pair it with listening to your favorite music or listening to a podcast you enjoy.
• Can’t check your phone til you’ve done your 15 min of laundry

As a side note, I would caution you not to pair TV with your laundry routine.

I say that because I used to always pop on TV while folding clothes. While TV can be a good pairing for some new habits (like you can only watch TV while on the treadmill or something), it’s not great to do while doing laundry or folding because you’re only going to fold for about 5-10 minutes.

And I’ve found that watching TV while folding will make you work more slowly and you’ll be tempted to finish the episode. So it can be super inefficient when our goal is to finish it all as quickly as possible!

But, you could use it as a reward. Like, you can’t watch any TV or look at social media until the laundry is done.

After you’ve figured out your motivation, that then brings us to…

3. Set up Laundry Baskets/Hampers in Rooms

To make sure that gathering up laundry takes very little time, you want to make sure that there is a convenient place for everyone to put their dirty laundry. This usually means a dirty laundry basket in each bedroom.

If you don’t have something already, you’ll want to make sure you get something for each bedroom to put dirty clothes.

Personally, we use this striped bin and this colorful bin from Target. As well as these pop up hampers.

Get whatever works with your rooms and décor.

Which leads us to the step 4, which is to then…

4. Train Your Family to Use Laundry Hampers

If your family members aren’t already trained to gather and put their dirty laundry away, you’ll want to start to train them to use those dirty clothes hampers that are in their bedroom. Spouses may need a few gentle reminders to get into the habit, while children may need a bit more help. 

But the great thing is that once they know how to use the baskets and are in the habit of using them, your life will be considerably easier.

And this is a task that even toddlers can do (and really should do), though they may need more direction initially than older kids. A great time to do this is when tidying up bedrooms at the end of the day and changing into pajamas. 

And as you train your family, kids need to understand 2 main things:

• What actually belongs in the dirty clothes basket: If your kids are anything like mine, without clear instructions they will just throw all clothes on the floor into their hampers in order to avoid putting them away. So kids need to understand what constitutes “dirty”. In our house, it’s if the item was worn all day, it’s dirty. Or if it has food or other stains on it, it’s dirty. But if you wore it for just a couple hours and it still looks good or you simply tried it on for 10 seconds, it goes back in the closet or in the drawer. 

• How to put things in the basket: You want to eliminate barriers to keeping the house clean. Make sure the basket is easy for your child to use and in a place that is easily accessible–so not too high, not stuffed in a hard to reach location etc. The easier it is, the quicker they will learn.

Here’s what you need to remember as you’re training your family:

• Kids want to feel helpful and capable. Which is why kids who do chores have higher self esteems and are more successful later in life. As they learn and as they follow instructions, you’ll want to make sure they feel helpful, capable, and can see the impact of their actions. 

• Using the language of helpfulness will encourage them more than rewards or threats. For more, check out The Simple Phrase that Gets kids excited to help out.

• You also need to build in this “teaching time” into your routine. Instead of chasing them around all day (which gets old and you’ll just give up) pick one time of day to enforce. 

Personally, I find that the end of the day, while everyone is pitching in before bedtime and changing into PJs, is a great time to enforce this.

And the cool thing about teaching kids to clean up is that once they learn and get in the habit, it takes very little effort on your part to enforce. Even toddlers can learn to put their dirty clothes in their hampers at the end of the day. 

Huzzah!

For more on chores for kids, check out these free printable chore charts and resources to help get your kids excited about chores.

So now that we’ve figured out how to gather and collect dirty laundry, it’s now time to…

5. Set up Laundry Sorting System with Divided Laundry Baskets

In the laundry area of your home, you will set up laundry baskets to divide out your dirty clothes. Once clothes are gathered into the laundry hampers in each bedroom, this is their next stop before going into the wash. 

This is the best laundry sorting system I have found. And it’s what makes this system work so effortlessly. Because you’re automatically creating divided loads that can go straight into the wash.

How to Set up Your Laundry Sorting Baskets

If you have an actual laundry room with some space, you have a lot of options for how you can organize the baskets. I don’t have a ton of space, as you can see below.

I just have a closet that has the washing machine and dryer with a shelf above. You can also see that I have labeled baskets for dividing out laundry. Th unlabeled basket is for clean laundry waiting to be folded.

Laundry Sorting Baskets

You’ll want a basket for each type of load you typically wash. In the image above, I have baskets for:

• whites
• darks
• lights
• towels & sheets

But you may want a basket for jeans, brights, blues, reds, or whatever you find works for you. I’ve got limited space and 90% of our laundry fits in those 4 categories.

You can use whatever type of baskets you like. I bought these particular baskets at Target (they were like $3 each). And here’s several laundry basket options from Amazon.

Labeling Laundry Baskets

I highly recommend labeling your laundry sorting baskets. This makes it easy for partners and kids (who read) to get on board without needing your help.

In fact, my 7 and 8 year old actually love dividing out their laundry!

Personally, I love these basket labels that you can use with a chalk marker. If your basket/bin has a smooth surface, you can use these sticker labels that I use all over my house.

6. Put it all together

At this point, you have everything physically set up. Now it’s just about putting it all together so that your laundry system works easily. Here’s how you’ll do that:

1. Make sure dirty laundry is making it’s way to bedroom laundry hampers every day.
2. Make sure laundry is then making it’s way to the sorting baskets every 1-3 days (depending on how much laundry your family creates).
3. Start your daily habit of washing a load and folding the load from the day before. Wash the biggest load from your sorting baskets.
4. Include family members as much as possible.

Including family members in this process is a win-win for everyone. Kids benefit endlessly from doing chores. And it’s amazing how much easier everything is when everyone pitches in.

Personally, I’ve found that children 6 and up are perfectly capable of folding their own clothes. And they can’t get better until they practice!

SAMPLE LAUNDRY SCHEDULES

I wanted to now take a second to get into how this might look:

Laundry Routine #1

• In the morning, go around and gather laundry in bedrooms 
• Divide out into baskets
• Wash the laundry in the basket that’s the fullest
• Fold laundry from the dryer and put it away
• Throughout the day, toss dirty laundry, towels etc into the appropriate baskets. 
• In the evening, teach/oversee kids putting dirty laundry away (maybe even get them to take it and divide it out!)

Laundry Routine #2

• Kids bring dirty laundry to laundry area
• Kids divide out their own laundry into sorting baskets
• Wash the laundry in the basket that’s the fullest
• Fold laundry from the dryer and put it away
• Throughout the day, toss dirty laundry, towels etc into the appropriate baskets. 
• In the evening, kids putting dirty laundry in hampers

Laundry Routine #3

• Throughout the day, make sure dirty laundry makes it’s way to laundry baskets
• Household members pick up and gather laundry from their bedrooms
• Household members bring gathered laundry to be divided
• Laundry is divided into baskets
• Throw in the load that’s the biggest
• Fold the laundry in the dryer and each family member helps to put it away

Weekly Laundry Schedule

• Monday: Clothes
• Tuesday: Clothes
• Wednesday: Clothes
• Thursday: Clothes
• Friday: Clothes
• Weekend: Sheets & Towels

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE PERFECT FOR THIS TO WORK

The one thing I want you to remember is that you don’t have to be perfect. Not at this and not at anything else for that matter. And certainly not as you begin a new routine.

While you should start to feel the difference in just a few days of trying out this system, know that it may take a few weeks before the system starts really running smoothly and becomes a second nature.  You may miss a few days. The key is to start working toward creating a daily laundry habit. 

I occasionally miss a day or two. But if you’re pretty consistent, the system still works like a charm.

And there you have it! The simple laundry system that has completely changed my life.