Laundry Routine: Working Moms

Laundry Routines are as varied as any household job comes.  What works for one family is possibly not going to work for another.

I love to read how different people do things, even if I have a method that works fairly well for me.  I enjoy reading different ways of freezer cooking, organizing my coupons, and being  more productive in my day.  When you read another’s method, it helps you analyze your own, seeing if you need to re-work any areas.

I’ve had a few requests to highlight laundry routines of various families.  The following is a sample routine of those moms that work full-time hours at home and those that work outside the home. Take the ideas from this post that you can use to help make your laundry routine better.

If your laundry routine is already fantastic, sit back and read and then give yourself a big pat on the back!

It is helpful to take a look at the list of laundry questions and think a few moments of how you would like your laundry system to look at your house.  Laundry every day or just twice a week? An assigned day of the week for laundry or just when the baskets are full?

Scenario #1:
It is feasible to wash 1-2 loads per day and still work full-time hours whether at home or outside of the home.  The best set-up involves a washer with a programmable timer.

Before going to bed at night, fill the washer with the load of clothes and any detergent/boosters/fabric softener needed.  Set the washer to turn on at least an hour before you get up.  I like to set mine about 4 am.

As soon as you are up and at ‘em, move the laundry to the dryer and start the next load.

Once arriving home in the afternoon, fold the first load and move the second load into the dryer.  Before bed, fold the second load.

Also before bed, evaluate whether you need to do the same set-up for the next day.  If so, go ahead and load your washer with clothes and laundry products and set the timer.

You can certainly do this without a washer that has a timer, but the timer is convenient since it gives your laundry a jump start to the day.

Scenario #2:
Another option for WAHMs or WOTH moms is to do the bulk of the laundry in one day.

The obvious choice is Saturday, but just for the sake of bringing new ideas to the table, let’s choose a day that isn’t a weekend.

Assume Thursday is your ‘easiest’ day at work, meaning there are no projects due on Friday, etc. And you can even leave early on Thursday afternoon.  And it turns out Thursday is the night that you catch up on everything you’ve DVRed for the week.

On Wednesday evening, have all of the clothes sorted and ready to roll on Thursday when you get home from work.  As soon as you get home, throw a load in the machine.  Set a timer in your house so you know when the load is finished.  Consistently keep the laundry moving all evening long until you’re finished.

Fold or iron clothes while you’re catching up on your favorite shows.  The joy of the DVR is that you can pause it while running to the laundry room. 🙂

To make your laundry night easier, consider ordering take-out.  Or just pulling something out of the freezer. Make this a light night of household tasks if possible.

Scenario #3:
It might work best to work a combo of these two methods: wash a couple of loads during the week and then do a bulk washing day on the weekend.

Choose Tuesday night and Wednesday night to load the washer full and set the timer.  Then you wake up to one load each on Wednesday and Thursday mornings.

Then on Saturday or Sunday afternoon, you can catch up with the bulk of the laundry.

Remember that the goal of any laundry routine is to get you out of crisis mode and into maintenance mode.

Are you a WAHM or WOTH mom?  Do you have specific questions about getting into your own routine?  Ask away.