5 Fresh Tips: Make Laundry Less Overwhelming with Professional Organizer Lindsey Mahanna

Figuring out how to make laundry less overwhelming can feel so overwhelming, but you’re not alone! Check out these 5 Fresh Tips to help make your laundry overwhelm less overwhelming with professional organizer Lindsey Mahanna.

You can learn more about Lindsey Mahanna on her Fresh Starts Profile.

5 Fresh Tips to help you be less overwhelmed with laundry:

1. Figure out the best cadence for your family. One load per day or a marathon session over the weekend? I like the one-load-per-day approach. Throw it in before work, move it to the dryer later in the day, and fold it later that evening or the next morning - whenever you have the most energy.
2. Try laying flat instead of folding. Trying to keep wrinkles at bay, but don’t have time to fold? My husband brought this laundry trick to the relationship and it’s a keeper. When those t-shirts come out of the dryer still hot, lay them flat on a surface and pile them up on top of one another. This will keep the wrinkles out until you have time to fold them. Just be careful because cats are drawn to a pile of warm clothes.
3. Wash each person’s clothes separately. The old guidance was that clothes must be sorted into lights and darks before washing. This guidance can be ignored, except for brand-new dye-heavy clothes (those should still be washed separately at first). Since you don’t need to sort by color, I recommend washing each family member’s clothes separately - especially children’s. This makes it so much easier to keep track of whose clothes are whose. This also works well with tip #4…
4. Get Kids Involved. Start when they are little by having them turn their clothes right side out. Then, as they get older, add in folding their clothes. Eventually teach them how to work the washing machine and dryer. Tips for kids with ADHD: Kids with ADHD like to know what is expected of them. So, try to have their laundry day be the same day every week. In my house, kids’ clothes are washed on Fridays or Saturdays so that they can help with it while off from school and so that they can “fold” it in front of the TV. Also, review what really needs to be folded. Laundry is one of the most dreaded tasks for people with ADHD. I see it across all of my clientele. This is when it’s helpful to change the expectations a bit. For my son who lives mostly in athletic gear, I only ask him to fold his t-shirts and match up his socks. Everything else can be tossed in the drawers. Does his folding look anything like mine? No, but as long as he’s comfortable wearing those clothes, that’s fine with me.
5. Change your expectations for family members with ADHD, even the adults. People with ADHD really struggle with putting clothes away. So...Don’t! Leave them in the basket. However, you will need to set up a system to make sure you know which clothes are clean and which aren’t, especially since clothes may not always get folded. I recommend keeping clean clothes in laundry baskets and keeping dirty clothes in hampers. Bonus Tip: If you are really behind in laundry - outsource it! If money is tight, dropping it at a laundromat is cheaper than door-to-door service. Also, you could always choose to outsource some and not all of your laundry.

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