Doing Laundry ceoMom Style

If you are one of the many moms with laundry woes, we're about to shake you silly. Laundry is the nemesis of out-of-control moms. Does this sound like you:

The laundry pile grows, so you do a load by stuffing as much as you can in the washer, turn it on and forget about it. Time goes by and you realize your load never made it in the dryer. By the time you realize this, it doesn't smell like fabric softener anymore, so you have to re-wash it. Then it sits in your dryer for days and when you finally get around to starting another load, you cringe when you realize there is a big load waiting for you in the dryer that is now all wrinkled. So you have to spin it for a few minutes and work up your muster to do the worst part of the job – putting the clothes away. It takes, what seems forever, 20 minutes to fold, hang and put the clothes back in drawers and closets. In the mean time, your laundry pile is at an all time high. You feel determined and spend the whole day doing load after load. By the end of the day, you feel accomplished, but tired. Too tired to wash any clothes the next day and so your laundry begins to pile up again.

This has got to stop! The stress that laundry puts on moms is just not fair. It's like it's always there, lurking in the laundry basket. It scares you to heck when you see it. It's time to splash water in your face, wake up from the nightmare and get a hold of yourself.

This is how to do laundry ceoMom style. It takes minor discipline and really all you have to do is try it for two weeks and you'll be hooked. You'll never want to go back to the terror days.

Here's the big laundry secret (ready for this – it's a deep laundry thought): You wash today what was worn yesterday. You got it? You don't wash what was worn last Tuesday. That was washed on Wednesday.

Here's how it works. Your husband goes to work, your kids go to school, you are dressed for the day and any kids at home are dressed. You scoop up all the jammies and clothes worn yesterday and you stick them in the washing machine. A family of four can fit in one load. You may need to keep a few whites out if they need to be washed separately, but the majority of clothes can be washed together (cold water, cold rinse). Do this in the morning. When you have a moment a bit later, put the clothes in the dryer. When you have another moment, put the clothes away.

Before it would have taken you a long time to put the clothes away. Now it's easy. We're talking jammies that get put in drawers, a few pairs of pants and a few shirts (and some underwear). It's not like those old loads of laundry where there were 15 shirts that needed to be hung on hangers. You'll be shocked at how easy it is. You absolutely have to swear under no circumstances (unless you go into labor and even then send your husband home after the baby is born to do it), can you go to bed without putting away the load in the dryer. Really this won't be a problem. You'll be so amazed at how stress-free it feels to be on top of your laundry instead of buried, that you'll want to put it away. It feels good. Give it two weeks and you'll feel it too.