Have you tried a laundry day yet?

Before I started designating a single day to laundry, it was my absolute least favorite task. It always piled up and there was SO MUCH OF IT. I wouldn’t do laundry until I literally ran out of underthings. …including all my swimsuit bottoms. (facepalm)

Can you relate? Unless you’re a SuperVirgo™, my guess is probably yes. But after finally having enough of this damn laundry already, I decided to switch to a laundry day. And I am never looking back.

Yes- at first it is overwhelming.

Yes- at first it takes forever.

Yes- at first it feels completely impossible.

But after using this method for more than a year, I am FREE from the perpetual laundry cycle. Halle-fricken-lujah.

Why do I love laundry day so much? Let me count the ways…

1. Laundry doesn’t pile up over time & smaller loads are more manageable:

Do you know how incredible it feels to be able to fold & put away an entire load of laundry in less than ten minutes? Back before laundry day, I would try to fit all of the dirty clothes into the washer at once. Folding that many clothes? Forget about it. They would just sit in the laundry basket until they all got worn or until I threw them in the dirty hamper again because they were so wrinkly and couldn’t be worn. When you’re washing roughly the same amount of clothes per week, it takes far less time than you might think. One week’s worth of clothes truly is not that much. (And if you’re ready to type out a comment about how you have 15 children and are forced to wash your clothes by beating them against rocks in a creek and therefore laundry day is impossible for you, then you probably aren’t going to find much help here anyway so please find a different blog that can offer you advice that suits your unique lifestyle better.)

2. The rest of the week is laundry free which means the washer is always available for laundry emergencies!

Have you considered the fact that the common “one load a day” method means that the laundry NEVER ENDS?!? That’s a nightmare in my book. I shudder when I hear bloggers recommend washing & folding one load EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. That sounds like my own personal hell. Aside from laundry being the worst in general, have you ever encountered a laundry emergency only to realize that there is a load of clothes already in the washer? Maybe it’s even been in there so long that it got mildewy. Ahhh! With a laundry day, it takes away that stress. Nothing is left to get stinky and laundry emergencies are handled smoothly.

3. You can see which clothes you’re actually wearing and nothing is forgotten in the washer:

Do you know what your favorite clothes are? Do you get to wear them as often as you want or are you always just wearing whatever is clean? I never truly felt great about my outfits because they were never my first choice- the first choice was either still hanging in the closet waiting for a “good enough reason” to be worn or was sitting in the hamper. I had designated ugly house clothes and cute outside clothes because I didn’t feel like it was worth it to “waste” my favorite clothes on myself and have to wash them later. Now, I still have house clothes, but I LIKE THEM. I love the way I look in them and I feel comfortable in them. My mental health and self confidence got a nice little boost from it. Because of laundry day, I was able to get rid of the clothes I don’t truly like and wear only what I do like!

4. Consistent routine equals consistent success and requires less mental work:

Making something into a routine or habit is the number one way to stop wasting mental energy on it. When routines and habits become second nature, you don’t have to think, your body just acts. This is so unbelievably freeing for those of us who are juggling the entire mental load of our households (and let’s face it, most of us who suffer from the burden of the mental load identify as women). Creating a consistent laundry day routine removes the stress associated with a lack of clarity in this area. You know you’ll have enough socks for your trip. You know you’ll get to wear your favorite shirt to that coffee date later this week. You know you’ll be able to collapse into clean sheets tonight. The peace that comes from not worrying about something as insane as laundry is priceless.

How can you introduce laundry day into your own  homemaking routine?

First, you’ll need to look at your schedule and determine which day(s) you’ll most likely be home consistently. You could also split your laundry day into two days if needed, it’s up to you and your routine. Make sure you’re not scheduling your first few at a time when you have a lot going on (like the holidays) or already do another large household chore that day. For example, I would never do laundry and bathrooms on the same day because bathrooms are my least favorite chore and doing both would overwhelm me. Instead, I do laundry on takeout dinner day to make it easier and give me something to look forward to while I’m doing it! Try to do something rewarding for yourself on laundry day. Flooding our brains with dopamine from something we enjoy is actually the best way for us to build habits!

The first few laundry days will most likely be very difficult if you have a lot of laundry clutter like I did. Laundry is a lot like working out. if you do it consistently, it becomes easy! If you don’t, then it becomes that much harder to begin again. And the best part is, you don’t have to escalate laundry over time to get the same results like you do with exercise! 

Pro Tip: decide on the order of how you’ll wash clothes to streamline the process. I don’t bother to separate lights & darks, I separate clothes by delicates and regulars. I wash everything on cold anyway, so my colors never bleed (and new clothes get washed separately the first time to prevent this).

Here’s my washing order you can use for an example:

• First load, bed linens, po’s crib sheet/pillowcase, and bathroom towels.

• Second, mine and my daughters clothes

• Third, kitchen towels & cleaning towels on a special deep cleaning cycle

• Fourth, whatever the “big” thing that gets washed biweekly or monthly is (throw blankets, couch cushions, shower curtains, delicate items… you get the picture)

I schedule my entire laundry day routine out in my Tody app so i know what to do when. It’s beautifully brainless. (I highly recommend the Tody app if you have ADHD like me or work well with to-do lists)

Once you have all your washing done, you’ll be able to wear your favorite items. Then next laundry day, you’ll likely have an idea of how much you actually wear in a week. And unless you change your outfits 3x a day or wear 10 layers, it’s probably less than you imagined! In summer, my house outfits consist of: bra, panties, socks, shorts, possibly an apron if I’m cooking or baking. If I go outside (which, ew), I just throw a crop top on and I can usually get two wears out of a shirt before washing. Simple. Children are a different story, with all their spilling and potty accidents, but it’s only for a short time and then they can learn to do their own laundry (which will likely make them more cognizant of how many clothes they’re going through…). But in the younger years, I purposely buy more clothes than needed for my toddler because it’s worth it to me to always have extras handy in case of accidents or spills.

An important concept of having a Laundry Day is folding and putting away clothes ASAP. If you let them pile up, it increases the likeliness that they won’t get folded at all (ask me how I know). This seems to work best for me, but you might work better folding everything at once. Do what truly works best for you!

Tell me in the comments below, are you going to try a laundry day?