Do You Simply Have Too Much Laundry?

Sometimes when attempting to organize your household you might discover that the problem lies in your family's overall processes, habits and lifestyle. For example, even the most perfectly organized laundry room may not be a match for the fact that your family simply creates too much laundry. Although you might not think about it very often, today's busy lifestyle has made most people a bit more careless than they used to be. For example, have you ever caught yourself tossing a clean shirt back into the laundry hamper just because it was slightly crumpled and needed ironing? If this sort of scenario happens frequently in your household, here are some ways of controlling the amount of laundry you have to deal with each week.

Too Many Clothes

The fact that most people have far too many items of clothing helps to contribute to an overabundance of laundry. By comparison, a single person today may personally own more items of clothing than an entire family owned in years gone by. When a person has more clothing items available from which to choose, there's more of a tendency to wear multiple outfits during any given day. Although many times there's a need to wear "work clothes," "play clothes," and "dress clothes" at different times throughout the day, these multiple wardrobe changes can really contribute to the amount of laundry that piles up.

It's also important to realize that some items of clothing can be worn a few times before they need to be laundered. For example, pajamas and nightgowns don't really get dirty each night while you sleep. Still, many people toss their still-clean pajamas in the clothes hamper automatically when they take their morning shower. Simply wearing clothing items that are still clean a second or even third time can help reduce the amount of laundry you have to deal with every week.

It can also be helpful to go through your closet, discarding any clothing items that you don't really need. You can either donate these clothing items to charity, or sell them in a garage sale or on an online auction site. Once your closet is a little less stuffed, you'll be able to trim your wardrobe down to the items that you really love to wear as well as the items that are truly useful for your lifestyle. By doing so, you'll be less likely to put on an outfit only to change it later in the day. Plus, if your closet has plenty of free space, your clothing items will be less likely to become crumpled and wrinkled.

The "Green" Approach to Linens

If you've stayed at a fine hotel lately, you probably noticed that they provided you with a way to signal the housekeeping staff as to whether your towels and bed linens needed to be changed. You can use this same strategy in your own home to help keep laundry under control. Although many people have developed the habit of using a bath towel only one time before tossing it into the laundry, it's actually possible to use a bath towel multiple times before it needs to be washed. Simply make sure that you hang the towel up to dry, and it will be ready to use for your next shower or bath.