Dear Friends,

It’s that time again. I am walking my way to the moon. When I was 12  years old, I watched Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. We all watched in amazement as he said those famous words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

It seems that babysteps are a part of everyone’s vocabulary and way of life. The engineers and mathematicians understood them for the flight to the moon and even babies have the instincts to use them as they teach themselves to walk. We are not born with the all or nothing attitude that paralyzes us into procrastinating. Somehow over our lifetimes we develop this negative way of thinking. I like to call it stinking thinking.

Laundry is a big problem for most of us. It is because we see it as a huge mountain, which it probably is since we put it off until everyone is out of clothes. I see laundry as a 5 step process; sort, wash, dry, fold and put away. We want everything done at once, but this isn’t going to happen unless you wag it all to the laundry mat and spend the day there. Now if you do have that mountain of laundry and you can afford to spend the money and time, then the laundry mat is a good idea. Just being there will help keep you focused on doing the laundry.

I have only one place to keep my dirty clothes. I don’t make piles on chairs or on exercise equipment either. I use  my laundry sorter; it stays in my bathtub. That is where I remove my dirty clothing each evening. As I take off my clothes; I sort them into the appropriate bin.

Robert does his own laundry. There are two laundry baskets in the bottom of our closet, one is dark colored for dark clothes and the other is light colored for whites and light colored clothes. When a basket gets full; he does a load. This usually works out to two or three loads a week.

Taking babysteps with your laundry is the way to keep it from becoming that mountain that won’t go away. Even though we are good at making mountains of out of mole hills we can learn to turn those overwhelming piles of laundry into put away clothes by not trying to do too much at one time and just take those babysteps as we establish a simple routine for just doing it. One load a day; keeps Mount Washmore at bay.

1. Make sure you have plenty of laundry detergent.
2. Empty every laundry basket that is not holding laundry.
3. Clean out one drawer for each family member.
4. Have everyone gather up all their dirty clothes in their rooms.
5. Sort each person’s clothes into piles; darks, colors, whites.
6. If one person does not have a full load then grab another persons.
7. Gather one load and take to the washing machine.
8. Every time the washer stops have a load ready to go in.
9. Load the dryer, while drying clean up your laundry room.
10. When dryer stops, immediately fold the items.
11. Reload the dryer and washer.
12. Go put away the clothes; don’t pile them up.
13. Never go to the laundry room empty handed.
14. Never leave the laundry room empty handed.

Are you ready to FLY without crashing into a mountain of dirty clothes?

FlyLady

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