Laundry: How to tackle the overwhelm when there's too much to do
EPISODE 46
by Dianne Jimenez
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Laundry – How to tackle the overwhelm when there’s too much to do
Welcome back to another episode of the Parenting Guide Organizing Habits Made Easy podcast.
So before we get started, and I haven’t done this in a long time, and I want to give a shout out to someone who left a rating and review on my podcast show on Apple podcast, and they write:
Reading a review
Thank you for your honesty. Love this latest podcast. The fact that you said you were resentful struck a chord with me. I remember feeling the exact same way. My husband wasn’t as forthcoming with help, so I just did all when it came to the kids till one day I just broke down and asked him for help, he had no clue. I was stressing. So important to keep the communication open and let our spouses know how we’re feeling.
They aren’t mind readers like us as moms, we lose ourselves in our kids. Our lives change so much, but I can honestly say now having grown kids, they see it. So it’s important to show them that raising kids should be 50-50.
Thank you!
Loved this one. Well, thank you so much emoase, for this beautiful and wonderful review. By the way, hope I pronounced your name correctly and you are absolutely so right when you’re saying that the kids should see us raising them 50-50, especially if you have a partner in your life or other, even adults that are taking care of your kids or helping you take care of the kids, you know it’s a lot easier when there is more than one person, right?
It takes a village…
They do say it takes a village to raise a kid. So if you have a village, please take advantage of that village and ask for help as much as you can and whenever you need it. Because as you know, parenthood is hard. It’s challenging, and sometimes we can just go crazy, right? So please, if you have someone out there that can help you, you know, reach out to a neighbor or a friend, a cousin, someone… reach out.
Now in case you’re wondering, and this hits home with you, this review was about episode #17: Let’s talk mental health. Stop spreading yourself too thin. I’ll link it in today’s show notes. But if you want to get to that episode right away, you can just head to diannejimenez.com/podcast17. That’s Dianne Jimenez.com, and that’s Dianne with two Ns forward slash, episode (should be podcast) one seven.
Want to go from 'drowning' to peace of mind?
One of the ways the laundry piles up
Alright, for today’s episode on Tuesday tips, we’re going to talk about overcoming the laundry pile, but more specifically laundry after a long holiday and after family comes to visit, what do we do? How do we go about getting everything done in an orderly fashioned way or even with less overwhelm, especially after a busy weekend?
In other words, getting back on track. It was Thanksgiving weekend and for us, we had family staying over from Ontario for a couple of nights, but we also hosted Thanksgiving dinner. We were also invited to another Thanksgiving slash birthday event the following day. And finally, we had another cousin stay over too. You can say there was a lot going on and for sure no laundry being done, whatsoever, over the weekend. And the week, and all the demands are just about to start rolling in. It can totally get so overwhelming. Does that ever happen to you? I’m sure I’m not the only one.
How do we reduce laundry overwhelm?
So how do we go about getting organized with all this laundry and not getting so overwhelmed by the piles and piles and piles of dirty laundry so that we’re back on track as soon as possible? Now how do we go about getting organized and back on track?
find out how families with 3+ kids tackle the beast: laundry!
Separate your laundry
Here’s my tip. The first thing that I do is to separate my laundry by category priority and consult my laundry schedule. If you don’t have a laundry schedule just yet, you can grab it in the show notes, I’ll link it here. Or head to diannejimenez.com/46.
For instance, in our case, we have a lot of dark clothes and also I know that by Thursday I have to also get the sheets changed for two of the beds. So that’s a big laundry day already. And considering there’s gonna be activities all after school, there’s very little time or have to be strategic with the after part, which is folding.
The easy part is loading up the machines. However, the not so fun part is folding and putting everything away. And if you have a lot of baskets or piles of laundry everywhere, not only is it an eyesore, but it definitely takes a toll on your mental state
So where do we start when you have piles of towels and blankets and sheets and pillowcases on top of mounds of clothes that need to be washed for the week? And because the cousins were sleeping over, you know, there were extra blankets and towels… Everything from our living closet was used.
Which pile of laundry to do first?
Getting back on track with laundry and reducing all the overwhelm. Not everything has to be done by the next day. I mean, it depends on your household, how you all function. But at our house, you know, I kind of, we kind of have to go by priority.
My Secret Sauce for setting the kids up for success
So come Monday morning or Monday evening when we’re back to normal routine, we had no towels or it was kind of still the towels from the other week. Therefore, I knew I had to get those done immediately. So those were obviously the first things to get washed.
Now, it wasn’t just one load, it was a couple of loads because if you’ve listened to my previous podcast, episode number 43, I started taking swimming lessons two to three times a week. So yeah, the towels were getting used up.
Find and create space
My strategy here, to move strategically, avoid or decrease the overwhelm as much as possible, and to tackle categorizing and prioritizing is I’ll start off with an open space. And it doesn’t have to be that big, it can be just the hallway. Then I will start sorting out the laundry and make distinct piles.
And sometimes to help me with this, I grab all the baskets that I have. This just makes things a lot easier if I have to pile them up one on top of the other and to create more space so we can pass by along the hallway. Or if someone is ready to start a load, they can just go ahead and grab a basket and start the load.
3 things to establish now before losing your s#!t later on (during the school year)
Smaller loads of laundry leads to less items to fold
What I’ve been trying lately is to try not to stuff my machine or fill it to like three quarters. Sometimes I’d even do a little bit less than that so that when it comes to folding, it’ll be so much quicker ’cause it’s literally less than a basket’s worth.
It takes some adjustments and it’s kind of getting used to. Like, hey, if I do smaller loads, that means just more laundry to do and a waste of electricity and waste of water, et cetera, et cetera. But the other hand is, do small jobs at a time and finish them quickly so that you can move on to the next. And you feel that sense of accomplishment when you’ve done a whole load of laundry, folded it up and put it away. Right?
How we’ve been doing laundry in the past
Now you’re probably wondering, I’ve been doing this for years. What’s the difference?
This is nothing new. Well, for those of you who, if you are like us, we would just dump anything that was in one hamper into the machine. Now, I’m not talking about towels or sheets at all. They had their own laundry cycle. I’m strictly talking about the clothing category: Whites, jeans, delicates, whatever. Mind you, we didn’t have a lot of delicates at the time. It was all washed together.
Free training: "How to find time in a busy schedule"
Did you know…?
The machine actually needs space for the clothes to move around in the machine and the water to get through and make sure it cleans out all the stains that’s seeped into the fabric. So please don’t stuff your washing machine. It’s not good for your clothes or for your machine to work efficiently.
Recap on how to reduce the laundry overwhelm
All right, we’re finally at the end. So why not give you a recap of my strategy to reduce the amount of overwhelm and tackle the mounds and mounds of laundry after a very busy weekend of no laundry at all.
- Find an open space or just any kind of little space you have where you can sort out your laundry.
- Use baskets or any kind of container to help you distinguish the piles from one another.
- You’re going to limit yourself to the height of the basket, for each load that you’re going to put into the machine.
So basically, not making heaps and mounds of laundry in that basket, but kind of like, respecting the structure and the limitations of it. For instance, you know when you’re making a cake and you have to scoop out a cup of flour? Well, you don’t want it to have a mound. You want it to be level. So level the amount of clothes that you have inside the basket so that you are just within the limitations of that basket. And finally,
4. Do smaller loads.
Doing just that much laundry of whatever the basket can hold sometimes is a lot better. And it helps my mental health knowing that it’s just a small load, a small pile to fold and a small pile to put away.
Stay on track with laundry & tips to getting the kids involved
Small actionable tasks builds momentum
To me, that’s pretty motivating already. And, it gets me more into a momentum to do the same thing for the next load and the next load and the next load after that.
So by the end of the week, I’ve done smaller loads more consistently and with more motivation to get things done because it was in small chunks. Now if you have a larger load with double the amount, well yeah, it’s gonna take you a lot longer. And if you have piles and piles of other baskets just waiting for you, well guess what?
You’ve got over an hour or two of folding to do and who has time for that? So basically the larger the load, the more there is to fold. Let me say that again:
The larger the load, the more there is to fold.
So let’s make our lives a little bit easier and do things a little simpler. You’ve got this friend!
Thank you and please share and follow my podcast show!
All right, thank you so much for being here and tuning in once again and listening to this episode. I’m so appreciative of your time. And if you liked this episode, please don’t forget to follow on your favorite podcast platform by clicking on that follow button or the plus button to make sure you don’t miss the next episode. Until then, see you next time. Bye bye!
Referenced in this episode
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