I am a lazy person. I hate chores and will do whatever I can to make them go away.
That’s why I love being a minimalist. It makes cleaning so much easier and quicker! A lazy person always takes the shortcut and minimalism was just the shortcut I needed to make chore bearable.
Also alledgedly Bill Gates loves hiring lazy people, so there’s that.
So I’m going to show you the simplest way to do laundry. It’s so easy, it won’t even be a chore anymore. Large piles will be a thing of the past.
DISCLAIMER: I live a man, 5 cats and a rabbit. So basically I have laundry for two and ZERO kids. So adjust below for your fam (for example you may have to do a load every day instead of once a week like me).
LAUNDRY IS DONE
Have Fewer Clothes
The best laundry tip of all is to have fewer clothes. That automatically means less laundry!
For real. Do you every go weeks without doing laundry, go through every clean piece of clothing in your closet only to be forced to clean a huge mountain?
Yeah… say goodbye to that.
Wear Clothes More Than Once
Just because you wear it once, doesn’t mean it’s dirty. Wearing your clothes a couple times will prolong laundry day.
Of course toss the sweaty, smelly, dirty clothes in the hamper. But if you just sat around all day and didn’t get dirty, you can rewear that outfit again before cleaning it.
This goes for towels too. If you’re drying off your clean body, then your towel is still clean, no?
Don’t Separate
Separating your laundry is useless. I have never separated my laundry in my life. My clothes? They’re fine.
It takes unnecessary time to separate clothes. Plus you need separate baskets and it makes more loads. And it just sucks.
Don’t do it.
Cold Water Only
Since we are rainbow washing our clothes, it only makes sense to only use cold water so the colors don’t bleed together right?
Cool. Plus using cold water will save energy and save you money.
I never turn it to hot unless I’m dealing with cat pee.
Soap Nuts
Skip the wasted time filling up a small cup with detergent. The chemicals are awful and they’re expensive.
I use soapnuts from Eco Nuts. You throw them in a sack and into the washer and BOOM! Clean clothes.
Yes. I know how that sounded. I didn’t come up with calling a berry nuts and putting them in a sack.
Dryer Balls
Speaking of ease and saving money. Get some dryer balls. You don’t ever have to pay for dryer sheets again AND they stay in the dryer at all times.
No more reaching, pulling, throwing and tossing dryer sheets.
Fold and Done
And that’s it! The most time spent is flipping clothes around and folding. And of course, waiting for the them to wash and dry, but you can do other things while they run.
For folding: We separate each other’s clothes and fold our own.
That’s It
And that’s a streamlined laundry routine right there. It takes no more than 10 minutes each week.
On average, we do 1-2 loads every week. Sometimes we have extras to do. Comforters and soiled pet blankets for example. That bumps up the time, but it’s still doable!
I hate chores. So my mission is to streamline them and make them as quick as possible.