"Life is a juggling act" - I don't know who wrote it or where I read it. It is so true. There are 24 hours a day for everyone. But for some, it is just 4 hours of productivity and for some it could be as much as 20 hours of productivity. Now, don't try to judge what productivity is. A productive hour for me might be waste of time for someone and at the same time productive 2 hours of TV time for someone like my husband is a zero for me.
Coming to the point of me, I am not just a baker, a cook but also a person who can juggle many things at the same time. Call me a super multi tasker and that makes me do many things every day that many people seem to think is not possible. One of my forte is being highly organized. And I thought I will share couple of tips with those who might find it helpful. I'll post something once a week about doing some household work in an easier way. It could be related to food or might not be related to food at all. It might be about cleaning a bathroom or cleaning the garage. It could be about freezing food or it could be about laundry. I will keep writing as long as the response is good.
To today's tip - Organizing your closet and simplifying Laundry:
Keep a laundry basket in the closet (I have one laundry basket in every room's closet) and every bathroom. That makes half of the mess in the closet go away. Not everyone is prompt in taking the dirty clothes and putting it away in laundry basket. If you have one right in front of you, it gets done. Plus, it eliminates repeating the stinky cloth by mistake.
Buy as many hangers as you need. Wood ones last forever. Plastic ones even though are cheaper, do not work very well for heavy clothes. Hang shirts on one side of the closet. Pants on the other. Do not mix them up. Keep the jeans pants and other miscellaneous clothes that do not need a crease maintained folded and on the shelf in the closet (Most of the closets have at least one shelf in them). Keep a box for storing the clothes that are not in season. I have a giant ziploc bag which has fleece jackets, sweat pants, sweat shirts that we use in winter. The same bag holds capris, shorts and short sleeved shirts in winter when the fleece and other winter clothes come out.
Do not have a schedule to do laundry. Do it as soon as the basket is full. It takes less time and feels like less burden when you do it this way. One more thing to note is unless you have a new colorful dress to wash or you want to use the bleach: there is no reason to separate the whites from colors. But if you are one of those people who have to separate the clothes and wash, do it as small loads of one basket but, combine them in the drier. Colors don't get mixed up in the drier.
Lot of people use hot water to wash the clothes. It is not really required. Warm water is good enough to wash the clothes. To save energy, what I do is start the cycle with warm water. When the water is filled and it starts, turn it off and let it sit for 20 minutes. Then, I turn on the washer but with cold water selected.
Final tip for easy laundry - if you can maintain different baskets for different people in the house, laundry is a breeze since you are not wasting time sorting the clothes when you fold.
If any of these above write up makes sense to you, leave a comment. If you want to share some of your methods, you are very welcome to share them.
Next tip - next week.
I just found this blog and started reading your entries. I liked your laundry tips - especially the one with warm soak for clothes and the cold rinse. That seems like a really neat idea to save energy.
ReplyDeleteKeeping a box for storing winter stuff in the closet itself seems like a good idea. I store it in an old suitcase elsewhere and I always delay putting it away, since it means lugging the old suitcase.
such a nice article...i learned many new things...thanks
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