Laundry - Products & Tips to Save Time & Energy : Putting Experiences of Patients First

Laundry is high on the list of exhausting tasks for Spoonies. You can put it off for as long as possible but when everything comfortable is dirty & your birthday suit is all that’s left hanging in your closet, laundry will need to be done one way or another.

Here are a few tips & products I have found through Spoonie trial & error to be really helpful. One I just learned about recently. It was hard to believe something so simple (& free!) would cut any time off of doing laundry, let alone cut one whole step in half. But incredibly, it did!

Get naked the right way: Get in the habit of turning your socks or pants right side out as soon as you take them off. Taking the 3 seconds right then to fix it, is a lot easier than turning a large pile of clothes as you fold them. Also don’t shove: If you tend to shove pills or tissues in whatever pocket you have (like I do) get in the habit of checking your pockets as you put things in the hamper. It will save you from having your bright green Extra Strength Advil liqui-gels melt all over your sweatshirt. (That is a highly specific, but totally random example. I’m in no way saying that has happened to me… nope… never).

Forget the bags & baskets: Filled with clothes, laundry baskets are too big, too heavy & too cumbersome for my Spoonie body. I tried a laundry bag (like this one) & that was worse. By the time I’m able to keep the bag open and get the clothes in the bag, I’m done for the day & I have accomplished nothing! I finally tried a mesh laundry hamper & couldn’t believe the difference! It’s extremely lightweight, has handles so I can drag it if I can’t carry it & has a sturdy enough frame that it keeps its shape. It’s wonderful!

Note: I have used my mesh hamper non-stop for over a year now. After over stuffing it (on a regular basis) the top tore a little but it still works great (& for $4, I don’t mind having to buy a new one every so often!)

Sort it out: Getting 2 mesh hampers (1 in a light color, 1 in dark) makes it visually easy to remember to sort the clothes as you put them in the hamper. You won’t have to bend & sort on laundry day!

Go small: Years ago I filled a mini travel bottle (the type they sell in sets at Walmart for $1) with liquid laundry soap (like “Woolite” or whatever chemical free laundry soap you like) & stored it in my upstairs bathroom. If I need to rinse something that’s new or quickly wash out a stain (so I don’t have to spend hours stain treating it later once it dries), I just grab the squeeze bottle & soak the item in my sink, rinse it out & stick it on a hanger in my shower to air dry. It can save a lot of time & effort.

Tip: Washing bras like this will actually make them last a lot longer. At the very least, never put a bra in the dryer. They can last twice as long if you let them air dry.

Front & center: If your washer is top loading & your dryer is front loading, you know the joy of transferring the clothes bit by bit, bending up & down, back & forth, over & over. I quickly gave up on that (or rather my body gave up on me). So instead I dumped all the clothes on the top of the dryer (no bending). Once they are all out of the washer, it’s much easier to squat down on the floor & pull the clothes right into the dryer.

Remember what? Putting clothes in the wash isn’t something you forget to do when you are going commando. Remembering to go back an hour later & put the clothes in the dryer? Well… I don’t want to admit how many times I have had to redo an entire load of laundry because I left them in the washer too long. (The truth on just how long isn’t important). A portable timer (that you store on your washer so you don’t have to search for one every time) works well. I downloaded a free timer app on my phone & use that. It took awhile to get in the habit of setting it (or admitting I needed to set it) but finding a load of laundry in the washer I had started 2 days prior, cured me of that.

Time out: We are patients, we probably don’t care about a few wrinkles on our clothes but most of us don’t want to look like we just pulled them from the bottom of the hamper either. Set your timer for 5min before the dryer will end. (If you move slowly it gives you a few minutes to get to the dryer while it’s still running & everything is still hot). It’s tempting to leave the clothes in the dryer & deal with the crumpled remains later. I’ve done it many times, until I realized folding crumpled remains takes more time & energy. The easiest thing to do is spread the clothes over the back of the sofa. They won’t wrinkle & you can fold them a little at a time as you sit & watch TV.

Best for Last! This is the best laundry tip I’ve ever discovered. To cut the time it takes to dry your clothes, in half, simply put a dry towel in the dryer with them! I tested this out myself (many times) & it absolutely works. I threw a dry bath towel in with a load of clothes, sheets, a combo of stuff & it helped every time. If you’ve ever had to anxiously wait for your clothes to dry (whether you forgot to put them in earlier or you are tired but have to put the last wet load in before you can go to bed) you might love this trick as much as I do!

http://blog.healclick.com/ Cari Lea

If anyone has any thing they find helps get through the exhausting process that is “laundry”, I’d love to hear it!

Shelley

Cari – I have used the dry towel trick for awhile now, but for a different reason and don’t know why I hadn’t thought of carrying it one step further (well, I do know why, but …..). I was doing it on small loads where the dryer sensor doesn’t seem to work well and you end up getting up 3 times when the buzzer goes off and the clothes are still damp. I also just started using an old bath mat (with no rubber backing) instead of a towel, much more absorbent, but I’m sure that’s specific to the bath mat I had.

I love knowing about the mesh hamper. The bending and sorting isn’t my friend. Do you get them online or at a specific store?

Shelley

Noticed the link for the hamper on the second read through, sorry.
http://blog.healclick.com/ Cari Lea

Hey Shelley, bending & sorting isn’t my friend either. The bath mat wo a backing is a really great idea.
My drier that does that too, it thinks the clothes are done & you go back & they are still wet. Like I have the energy to go back & forth 3x bc of a stupid drier! I finally started putting it on the timer (runs for 45min) & that seemed to help.
No problem on not seeing the link. I didn’t order from that site but it’s the exact one I have. They actually make them all sizes & shapes!

Alison

I got a wheeled hamper with three sections. The sorting as I go along is great, but I was never able to actually wheel it from my bedroom into the kitchen where the washer and dryer are, so the mesh hampers would be better.

http://blog.healclick.com/ Cari Lea

Hey Alison, I have tried several different hampers through the years too. They were always too heavy or hard to carry. This is the best one I’ve found so far, I hope it helps you out a little.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=583270934 Corinne Segura

Hi cari, I have a even more lazy version. not having many clothes helps too (mentally at least). I have two bags, one for dirty one for clean. I take the dirty bag down (that fits two loads, and is basically my entire wardrobe.), when it’s dry I pull out just a few things that need to be hung up and the rest is made from material that doesnt wrinkle. So I leave the rest in the bag and put the bag on top of a drawer thing in the closet. Just pull things out as I go along. I put a few more things away as the week goes on, esp my two pari of pants so I can locate them, but shirts stay in the bag and whatever i pull out I will wear that day.

http://blog.healclick.com/ Cari Lea

Hi Corinne! I completely agree with you about not owning a lot of clothes. I discovered how much that helps last time I had to travel & was struck by how much easier life was with few clothes; mentally & physically.
The bag is a great idea & I think could help a lot of people, thanks for posting it!

Amy

Thanks for the tips and all you do with your blog! Laundry is indeed one of the most exhausting chores I can still manage to do. However, it’s been easier lately because I finally realized something that I feel should have been obvious to me, but I had yet to adjust my perspective: I can do SMALL loads! I may only wash five or eight articles of clothing at one time, but that’s eight more clean than I had. And I can manage to carry them myself! Doing small loads every few days prevents me from winding up at that point where absolutely nothing is clean and I have a mountain of laundry to get through. I had always been stuck on the idea that a load of laundry had to fill the washer in order for it to be “productive.” A leftover from the “I USED to be able to do X this way” line of thinking. I realize that running more small loads of laundry is not exactly energy efficient (for the planet and my electric bill), but MY energy is more precious to me at this point in my life. So, while this might be obvious to most people, I thought I’d share it in case someone else is stuck thinking like they used to!

http://blog.healclick.com/ Cari Lea

Amy: It’s fascinating but I kept thinking the “all at once giant load” was better too. That had to be less work than doing laundry 3x as often, right? Yeah, wrong! Just lifting, carrying, transferring, folding, a large load was enough to kill me. I found the same thing you did: smaller is better. I do laundry often now. Small loads that I can lift, transfer & wash easily! It really does make a huge difference. Thanks for reminding all of us it’s so important to not only shift how we do things physically but also shift our mental perspective on it all!

http://www.facebook.com/people/Karen-Gory/100001254023203 Karen Gory

I used to use a small laundry basket and dump it on the floor to sort it when I thought I had a full load or two. Ugh! My life was saved when I invested in a four-bag canvas laundry sorter – no more bending because clothes get tossed into the right section in the first place. When the bag is full, it’s time to wash it. And for another bonus I discovered that the canvas laundry bag sits nicely in my shopping cart so I don’t have to carry it! (clothes horses are less effort than loading and unloading the dryer and making extra trips downstairs to check it… stuff can stay ON the clothes horse all week long if necessary.)