The Laundry Quandry

I think I am finally a convert to FlyLady's one load at a time idea. You do it all the way through (to folded and put away) before starting another one, and I may even start shooting for just one load a day, instead of trying to get "caught up" all the time and totally burning out on laundry. I'm not saying this will work for everyone, and if you have a working system in place, by all means use it! Some things I've realized...

One load a day: I do the laundry in fits and starts anyway. I bet if I spread the loads out to one a day, it would average out to one per day (excluding weekends), with maybe two loads here and there when I'm washing sheets.

One load at a time: again, unless I'm washing a load of sheets, I'd better do this, or I end up with clothes drying in the bathroom, folded in the basket, or in a pile somewhere.

One laundry basket!! Some time ago I switched to using one basket (and it's a small one too). This forces me to empty the basket (hopefully by putting the laundry away!) before I bring up or down another load. This has eliminated baskets of clean laundry all over the house.

One FULL load a day: we pay for our laundry in the basement of our apartment. The dryer does not work very well. If I'm only shooting for one load, I can afford (money AND time-wise) to run the dryer twice and get everything actually dry. Benefits are twofold: the clothes don't need to finish drying all over the bathroom and I can put them away when they come upstairs; and I can wash a few more items in that load than I would if I were trying to get it dry on one cycle because I'll be drying it twice!

And finally, I have shifted my idea of the "goal" of doing the laundry. I used to think that what you are striving for when you do the laundry should be almost no laundry all the time. I have decided that what I should be striving for is enough clean laundry to function. That means that there will always be a couple of loads in the sorter in the closet. As long as we are not constantly running out of towels or underwear, this is OK! People used to have one shirt to wear, one for the laundry, and one in the closet. Having something dirty and waiting to be washed is a natural part of that cycle. I am NOT failing if there are things that need to be washed, as long as I have clothes in the closet that can be worn.

And one other thing I have started to do is pull the dirty clothes from the bottom of the sorter first. Otherwise, I am constantly washing the same five shirts on top and the stuff at the bottom gets unworn for long periods of time.