Sort, Straighten, Standardize, Sanitize, Sustain. These are good words to help inspire and build a strategy to answer the de-clutter process as well as more efficient time use.
Newest Project: Make a laundry schedule and organize laundry baskets.
Baskets: White = whites, large blue = colors, small blue = Levis, bathroom hamper = towels, turtle shape = children’s clothes.
Once the baskets were organized, the schedule was created. Some people in our family use a clean towel every day and others don't. Some also wear one clean pair of Levis a day, and sometimes twice a day. These two elements make more towel and Levis laundry than any other type, so it seemed to make sense to do these two types of laundry twice a week.
Schedule: Monday = whites, T = towels, Wednesday = Levis, Thursday = colors, Friday = Levis and towels, Saturday = children's clothes, Sunday = Colors and Levis.
So far this schedule is working. I don't spend hours sorting laundry back and forth between all the different baskets as long as everyone puts the right type of clothes into the corresponding baskets. I can't say it is easy to get everyone to comply.
It really seems to make sense to do laundry on a schedule rather than just waiting for different basket's to overflow before doing laundry, or having to do 5 loads of laundry on one day, or the entire weekend. One of the de-clutter strategies I learned was to do one load of laundry a day, so that you don't get behind and this is when a schedule can really work well.
Next project: The pantry!
