Designating one day to do all your laundry for the week (or month, depending on how much you have) can make your life much easier. You do not have to switch gears or set things up multiple times. Just do it all throughout the day and do not worry about laundry until the next laundry day comes around.

Sounds simple, right?

While saving your laundry and doing large amounts on a single day rather than one load here or there can help many people, the large amount itself can make laundry day very taxing. To help with this, we have gathered seven simple ways to help make laundry day a snap for you and your family.

Sort Laundry Beforehand

Many people simply throw all their laundry in a single basket. However, then they have to separate their clothing—often into whites and colours—so they can wash them without fear of discoloration or bleeding. This adds an unnecessary step to your laundry day. Instead, purchase two laundry baskets (or more, depending on how you separate your clothes), label them, and throw the appropriate laundry in there as you go. Thus, throw your jeans into the basket for colour clothes, any whites into their own basket, et cetera.

Use Cold Water

Using cold water for your laundry (unless you specifically need hot water for a particular item) is very beneficial. You can save on energy costs, minimize the risk of colours bleeding into one another, and even help stains come out with special cold water detergent.

Empty the Lint Trap

Most dryers have a lint trap, which collects dust from the load of laundry you are drying. As this lint trap fills up, however, the effectiveness of your dryer will decrease. This means you will likely have to dry loads for longer, and you may even damage your appliance severely if you let the lint pile up too much. To make things easy, be sure to empty the lint trap before every load of laundry you put in. This way it is always clean for your load and your appliance will dry to its maximum effectiveness.

Delegate Laundry Tasks

Once the laundry is dry, why not delegate folding and putting away the laundry to others in order to relieve some of the pressure on you? A great chore for children is to fold their own socks and other laundry, or even just to put their own clothes away as much as possible.

Empty Your Pockets

Having crayons, money, electronics, or other things go through the laundry with your clothes is never a fun experience. Not only can you damage your washer, but you may also destroy the item in question. Before you put anything with pockets (pants, shorts, et cetera) in the washer, turn out the pockets and remove anything you find.

Treat Stains Immediately

If you get a stain on your clothing, treat it immediately or as soon as you possibly can. This helps prevent the stain from setting, and makes washing the article in question much easier. Just remember to never put your clothes in the dryer if you can still see the stain. This will make the stain just about impossible to remove. Keep running through the stain treatment until the mark disappears.

Use Mesh Bags

If you have delicates, socks, or other pieces of clothing that would require hand washing, separation, et cetera, consider using mesh bags and include these items in a regular load. The mesh bag lessens the harshness of a regular cycle, which helps ensure your items will be okay while avoiding an unnecessary separate load of laundry. The bags also make sorting laundry later much easier (e.g. all your socks are in one place).

Image: kagenmi

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