Your Laundry Comments

Thanks for your input on the whole topic of laundry! Before we move on to a different room, I'd like to answer your questions and add one final tip of my own.

First was Beth, who said: "The problem I tend to have is that when the clothes are clean they are sorted into piles and placed on the respective person's bed. If that person comes home late or doesn't have time to put their washing away the pile gets moved to somewhere else so that they can jump into bed."

Beth, I have had that problem in the past as well. For me, the solution was to use the "container limit" technique (described in my Feb. 8th blog entry) in my bedroom.

I bought a lovely fabric-lined wicker basket and put it on the floor next to my closet. Now, when I carry my clean laundry into my room, if I don't have time to put everything away right then, I put the laundry into that basket instead. (Doesn't look great, but it's better than piling the clothes on a chair or the floor.) I can continue to pile my clean clothes there UNTIL THE BASKET IS FULL. At that point, I must put away those clothes before I can do another load of wash.

This is just one of those tricks for flexible-but-enforced limits. It's flexible in that I can choose when to put my clothes away, but the time limit is the size of the basket. As long as I stick to my own rule about not letting the basket overflow, the plan works.

It may sound gross, but for many years I frequently found myself washing things at least twice between wearings, because I'd stack them on the floor while waiting to be put away—and invariably the pile would fall over and the clothes would get stepped on and dirty again! How sad is that? At least with the container limit method, the items are staying clean while they're waiting to be put away. And hey, it works for me!

Check back next time for my answer to dana & ryan's question.