7 Genius Time-Saving Laundry Hacks for busy moms
Last updated on February 26th, 2024 at 06:08 pm
Tired of the piles of laundry? Feeling overwhelmed by the never ending laundry? You need some laundry hacks for busy moms!
Here are my favorite laundry hacks!
Laundry is never at the top of any moms list of things we love to do. I think it’s safe to say we all hate laundry, wish it would go away, or maybe we could just buy new clothes every week or could afford a laundry service. Is that wishful thinking?!
I want to help you:
☑️ Eliminate the piles and dread of laundry
☑️ Make laundry manageable
☑️ Stay organized and on top of laundry for your entire family!!
☑️ Always have clean laundry
These are the best laundry hacks, guarenteed!
1. Best way is to have a laundry schedule (that works for YOU!)
Never worry about dirty laundry, a huge laundry pile, or a family member complaining about no clean clothes.
Routines and schedules are great for creating order in our week with repetitive tasks that have to get done.
Your week will be more smooth and organized and tasks will naturally get done with little effort or thought.
Make sure your laundry schedule fits your personality, life style, and family size.
Divide the week up into what makes sense for your family needs.
Here is my schedule as a sample:
- Sunday – Kids 3 & 4 clothes
- Monday – Spouse clothes
- Tuesday – My clothes
- Wednesday – Sheets
- Thursday – Towels
- Friday – catch up day or FREE day
- Saturday – Kids 1 & 2 clothes
2. Do one load of laundry per day as a laundry hack for busy moms
Doing one load each day (even for small loads). It is so much easier than a huge pile of laundry at the end of the week that feels daunting and overwhelming. PLUS, you spend less time doing laundry when added up by the end of the week.
Don’t have these daunting laundry piles be YOU!
Instead, just one load per day. It’s ok if it’s not a full load.
You do not have to worry about separating types of clothes, you can keep whites and colors together by using the Shout Color Catcher Sheets which eliminates the bleeding of colors.
Wash everything in cold water.
Separate towels and wash them in their own load.
Each morning start one load of laundry before you head out of house for working moms, or before your day begins at home if you are a SAHM.
The goal is to have that load dried, folded and put away before you head to bed.
I incorporate my laundry in my morning routine, so I know it will get done and I don’t have to put a lot of thought or extra effort in to getting a load of laundry started each morning.
Being a mom is a hard job! Trying to manage all of the household responsibilities plus your kids, can be exhausting and stressful.
But it doesn’t have to be!
My Genius Mom Hacks Workbook gives you all of the tools, tips, hacks and proven strategies to help overwhelmed and stressed moms eliminate the mom stress & mom guilt so you can enjoy motherhood even more.
Hint: This workbook includes my laundry hacks, cleaning hacks, meal prepping hacks AND how to drink your coffee hot in peace & quiet every morning without your kids bothering you!
3. Separate laundry baskets by person
One laundry basket per person.
This is a game changer hack! I wish I had started doing this years ago.
Folding and putting away laundry is VERY easy when you wash each person individually, especially if you have your kids help.
When each child has their own laundry basket, they can easily put their dirty clothes directly in the hamper, because the hamper basket is conveniently stored in their room and only has their clothes in it.
On their scheduled day, either go and grab their hamper from their room, or teach / train your kids to bring the hamper to the laundry room on their assigned laundry day.
Wash, dry and put clothes BACK in hamper, take to kids’ bedroom and have them put their clothes away. (see below for more details on this)
Laundry hampers with wheels are great for houses that have flooring instead of carpet.
The carts with wheels make it very easy for kids to help and bring their laundry to the laundry room, assuming laundry room is on the same floor as bedrooms.
If stairs are involved these inexpensive hampers with no wheels are great.
The goal is to make sure each person in your family has one.
I really like the 3-Bag Laundry Sorter Cart for my bedroom. I have one section, my husband has one section and our towels & wash cloths go in the last section.
Plus they have wheels which make it super easy to move back and forth from our bedroom and laundry room.
4. Invest in mesh laundry bags for the socks
Each person gets one mesh zipper bags for socks kept in their laundry basket.
Are you tired of losing socks in the washing / drying process?
I still do not understand how they get lost. But I do know what works!
These mesh bags! Train your children, (and spouse), to put their dirty socks in the mesh bag which is right inside of their laundry hamper.
Kids aren’t perfect, so while loading the washing machine be mindful to put missed socks in the mesh bag.
5. Wash each person’s laundry individually
No Mixing Clothes. No more wasting hours sorting.
This helps a ton when folding the laundry. Stop spending extra time separating and sorting the clothes in to piles for the different family members, instead wash each person’s laundry individually.
Immediately take the clothes to the kids’ room.
**Below I share a reel from Instagram on how all these pieces come together, and you can include your kids!!**
6. The BEST laundry hack for busy moms – Have young children help!
My goal is to have my kids trained doing their own laundry by themselves by age 10.
So, from early on, I have my kids help.
When they are little, 4 and under, their “help” is not very “helpful”, but they are getting familiar with the process and routine of doing laundry weekly, so i’m patient know this will reap a harvest in a couple of years.
As they get older, it becomes a routine they naturally do, once familiar with the routine, mama is off the hook.
Pick a day in the week for your kids to help. Ours is Sunday. I use my Sunday Reset Day to make sure all of the kids clothes are ready for the week ahead.
Avoid kids complaining they don’t have clothes for the week by having them help pick out their outfits and put their laundry away.
7. Use shoe hangers for kids clothes
Set a weeks worth of clothes in the shoe hangers. This save so much time and reducing arguments and makes mornings so much easier for you and your kids.
This is one of my favorite mom hacks, especially if you have multiple kids.
Shoe hangers can be used for several years. From the newborn age all the way thru elementary, even my 9-year-old still uses his shoe hanger each week.
The shoe hangers do not need to be glamorous, I use an inexpensive shoe hanger from Amazon. But I do love this one that has the days of the week labeled.
It is a great way to confirm that each child is prepared for the week ahead with clothes, including underwear and socks.
Watch this reel to see how I include my kids in our laundry routine:
Other Laundry Hacks & Tips For Busy Moms:
Have a “Sports only” basket
Store the “sports” basket in the laundry room. Teach your kids to put their sports clothes and uniforms directly in that basket when getting home from the game.
Sports games are throughout the week, and will need to be washed multiple times in the week.
Don’t have your kids mix their sports uniforms with their regular dirty clothes that you wash only once a week. This will create a nightmare trying to sort through all of the clothes to find the sports clothes that need to be washed more frequently.
Have a designated sports uniform container
Once the uniform(s) are cleaned have a designated basket or container to store them in until the next game.
There is nothing WORSE then frantically looking for the uniform shirt that you KNOW you washed, but can no longer fine.
The more kids you have, and the more sports they play (especially if in multiple sports at one time) the more important this routine will be.
As a mom of four kids, all playing multiple sports, this routine is my life line and sanity as we try to get out of the house all dressed ready for their games.
Include sports practice clothes in your child’s shoe hangers
If your child plays sports, put both the school outfit and the sports clothes in the same shoe space for that day.
Sports can be immediately after school, allowing only a few minutes to get home, get changed, and then head out to the practice or game.
Eliminate extra stress by having all of the sports clothes picked out for the week ahead of time, on the day of their practice and game, will save you time and your sanity.
No more frantically looking for the needed baseball shirt you know you washed but now can’t find.
Managing laundry as a mom is no joke, especially for those who have larger families and children in multiple sports / activities.
Reduce your stress by going into your week on top of laundry using your new laundry hacks!
Have your laundry room organized for efficiency
Eliminate the frustrations of not having what you need, by organizing your laundry room to fit your family, personality and laundry needs.
- Store laundry detergent in an easy to open and use container
- Have stain removers quickly assessable for the last-minute stain you see as you throw the item in the washing machine
- Store unmatched socks or outgrown socks in easy assessable baskets
- Put a trash can in your laundry room for lint, random items found in pockets, finished detergent boxes and bottles
- Install a drying pole for those hand dry garments
- Scissors & iron stored in a drawer
My Favorite Go-To laundry products
These amazing laundry products will speed up the laundry process, make your laundry room more functional and more efficient.
Laundry room storage and organization baskets:
- Metal baskets, great for cubbies (as seen in above image)
Tight on space? Having a Collapsible Plastic Laundry Basket is efficient and a space saver.
Amazing stain removers for your laundry:
Have the battle with laundry when you have young kids is getting out all of the stains they make. Use these Tried and Tested stain removers to make getting stains out easy.
- Folex – this product will literally get blood, ketchup, red nail polish and red wine all out of white carpet with no residual stain remaining. AMAZING STUFF!! I buy bulk.
Laundry room storage containers:
Use containers for organization, functionality and to make your laundry room pretty. As a mom you spend a lot of time in your laundry room, so have a few decorations and cute containers to make the room more enjoyable.
This clear large glass container is perfect to store detergent in.
Looking for a detergent dispenser? This dispenser would be perfect!
Other important items to include in your laundry room:
Baby wipes – see where else I use baby wipes in my house and how they are the most used item in my home!
Tissue / Kleenex
Clorox Wipes
Laundry Hacks For Busy Moms To Speed Up Laundry
1. Have fewer clothes. Minimize your wardrobe
If you want to cut down on the amount of time you spend doing laundry, then purge and reduce the amount of clothes you have to wash.
It’s a good routine to regularly go through both your clothes and your kids clothes. Best time to do this is at the start of each season.
Donate, sell, or give away clothes you have grown out of, haven’t worn in 6 months, or you honestly know you will not wear them.
Kids often have way more clothes than they can wear in one season. Go through your kids closets and make sure you are really only keeping what you know they need.
Say no to having “play clothes”. Let’s be honest, play clothes are a great idea and concept, but ends up causing a lot more work for you as mom, and a lot more laundry in the long run.
Purge the clothes and keep what you know your family needs and will wear.
2. Use the time function on your washing machine
Load your washing machine at a convenient time and then use the time function to have it start at a later time in the day.
3. Have a drying rack to help dry delicate clothes
Drying racks are amazing! You can save lots of money not having to go to the dry cleaner if you wash clothes on a delicate cycle and then hang dry them.
If you don’t have space to install a permanent rod or rack, check out the GorillaLine – Retractable Clothesline Indoor Outdoor Clothes Line. Saves space, very functional and a great price.
Hang drying clothes can help clothes last longer.
4. Use dryer balls to speed up drying
Dryer balls speed up drying time, save energy costs and reduce static cling. Switch to these natural fabric, 100% New Zealand premium wool with no synthetic filler dryer ball.
5. Hang more clothes then you fold
Folding takes more time than hanging your clothes, so fold less and hang more to save time in putting clothes away.
6. Combine colors and whites and use a color catcher
As mentioned above, combine colors and whites using a color catcher to save time in having to wash more loads of laundry.
Laundry Hacks For Busy Moms Final Thoughts
These laundry hacks for busy moms have been game changing for me. I used to get so frustrated with managing the laundry for my large family of 6. I hated it, would procrastinate and felt like I was on the laundry hamster wheel.
But having these laundry hacks for busy moms has reduced the amount of time I spend doing laundry by nearly in half.
Doing one load of laundry every day makes laundry very manageable. It is so easy, so fast, and I never have to worry about my kids not having what they need for school or sports any longer.
If you are feeling stressed as a busy mom, and want motherhood to feel easier. You want your home to feel manageable, clean and not chaotic? You want to drink a hot cup of coffee and NOT have kids at your legs whining.
It is possible. My Genius Mom Hacks Workbook gives you all of the tools, tips, hacks and proven strategies to help overwhelmed and stressed moms eliminate the mom stress so you can have a home on autopilot. Work less, get more done and finally enjoy being a mom.
Looking for more genius hacks? Don’t forget to check out…
Want other amazing mom routines to help you stay on top of mom life?
Check out 13 Important Routines for Moms
I would love to hear from you, leave a comment, and share your favorite laundry hacks below.
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