I am working through the steps outlined in Simplify your Life by Marcia Ramsland. I wrote about the first system, Mealtime, in this post. Next, she tackles the Laundry Pile.
What does laundry look like at my house? I usually have a laundry pile a mile high and 1-2 baskets full of clean clothes waiting to be folded or put away. I also have hampers full of clothes needing to be washed! Sometimes, I will forget I washed and the clothes sits in the washer for a day or two. I washed my sheets about two weeks ago and they are still sitting in a basket in my room! Oh, boy, oh boy!
I don’t even do my teenagers clothes anymore!
I know exactly what happens. I start the laundry in the morning, maybe move it to the dryer and then I get busy and forget all about it. Come evening, I am tired and really don’t care. So I tell myself I will deal with it in the morning.
I am also reading another book right now called Laying Down the Rails for Yourself by Susan Shafer. I gotta tell you, I feel like God has purposefully orchestrated this. Laying Down the Rails is about creating and sustaining habits. It’s like these two books go hand in hand.
As I am writing this post, I was reminded of the chapter I just read about The Will. Your “will” is the gatekeeper of your thoughts. When it comes to pretty much any chore I will say ” I will do it tomorrow.” Instead of getting on it, I am not exercising my will. My will should stop that thought process and say “No, do it now. It needs to be done today.” But often, I just ignore that thought. Eventually, I don’t have any will power left to push through my daily chores.
With laundry, I have given up. I am treading water.
Marcia Ramsland insists on this principle: Wash, Dry, Fold, and Put away all on the same day!
So here is what I WILL do to make that happen:
First of all I will be trying to do my laundry at NIGHT. I have never done this, so it will be new. As I mentioned before, I often get distracted during the day and never finish. So my hope is, as I am lounging on the couch watching episodes of White Collar I will happily fold my laundry.
- Start 1st load at 6:35 pm-I am wrapping up dinner and clean up so it’s a good transition.
- Move to dryer at 7:15 and put in 2nd load
- Move 2nd load at 8:00-I put an alarm to remind me because I could myself forgetting. So at this point I will fold load #1 and start 2nd load.
- Last load comes out at 8:45-At this point I am usually, doing my evening routine. Tea time is at 9pm so I can fold laundry while I drink my tea.
That’s my plan. I really hope I can come back and say that it is working like a charm. I have 8-9 loads of laundry to complete a week so if I do 2 loads M-W and then 3 on Saturday/Sunday I believe this can work either way.
Ligia
