Friday, January 18, 2008

• The ADD-proof Laundry System

  First, my apologies to both-my-dear-readers for the space of time between posts.  I have a whole host of posts ready to be written, but something stupid is keeping me from doing it. 
  
  You see, I don't like the way my blog looks or functions, and I've been trying to find time to research other sites and how they function.  Consequently, I've been paralyzed around all issues concerning my blog.  Sounds silly to someone neurotypical, but you ADDers will know just what I mean.
  
  Anyway, once I recognized the source of my paralysis, I decided to just post.  Hopefully, that decision will stick!
  
  Back to the laundry system.
  
  Prior to diagnosis and treatment, we had clothing everywhere.  Draped over furniture, in (formerly neatly folded) piles on surfaces, on over-door hooks, in the laundry room - just everywhere.  I felt like between paperwork and clothing I just couldn't keep on top of anything!
  
  Enter, the ADD-proof laundry system.  The only thing it takes is a couple days to set it up and the commitment to keep putting things in their place once they have places.  You can do it!
  
  1)  Get supplies.
  

  • 7 to 10 full-size laundry baskets, any variety and color
    
  •  15 10-12 gallon Rubbermaid™ containers (anything around that size and waterproof).  If you can't afford to get that many, start with five and collect more later, but it's preferable to just go get them.  The time and money having a system already in place will save you will make up for this expense, I promise.
  • A roll of masking tape and a sharpie, or a Brother P-touch labelmaker.
  • A wire shelving unit that will fit in your laundry room, with one shelf per family member and an extra space for linen closet items.  If you have very young children, add a bag with handles to each child's shelf, large enough to contain a load of neatly folded laundry.
  • If you don't have one already, a shelf to hold laundry supplies.
  • A bowl (for loose change, chapstick, rocks, and other unpredictable things found in pockets of boys of all ages)
  • A way (besides dresser drawers or hangers) to store clean clothing for each family member.  More on this later.  This will include hooks easily at family member's level for "clirty" clothing.
    

  2)  Set it up.
  

  • Choose one laundry basket for transportation of clean laundry from the laundry room to clean clothes storage.  If it's not a separate color, label it on all four sides with your masking tape/sharpie or your Brother P-touch.
  • Decide how you're going to sort dirty laundry and label the rest of your baskets.  Some people sort by lights/darks.  I prefer to sort by family member, so the heavy fabrics and fasteners on my husband's clothing don't prematurely wear holes in my clothing, and so the occasional missed pocket item (rosin, for example {sigh}) in the boys' laundry doesn't ruin mine or the baby's.  Write down your sorting system, then label your baskets on all four sides and set them up in your laundry room.  My system is as follows:
    

  • Boys' clothing
  • Baby clothing
  • My clothing
  • Mike's clothing
  • Whites (everyone's)
  • Towels/cloths/rags
  • Bed Linens
  • Now label your plastic containers.  These are for outgrown, out of season, or extra clothing.  You will have these.  What are you going to do with them when it happens?  If you don't have empty bins ready, they will end up in your regular clothing storage area, and spilling out/draped all over your home.  Just do it now and save yourself the trouble.
  • Newborn/3 months
  • 6-9 months
  • 12 months
  • 18 months
  • 24 months/2T
  • 3T/4T
  • 5T/5
  • 6/6X
  • 7/8
  • 10/12
  • 14/16
  • Adult Male
  • Adult Female
  • Maternity
  • Goodwill/Freecycle

  It is important that you label all four sides of the bin, and also the top.  So if you have a handy-dandy Brother P-touch, you can just tell it to print you five copies.  Otherwise, you must take the time to handwrite all five labels.  This is so no matter how it's turned or what's on top of it, you can see what's in the bin.
  

  
  

  I don't have girls, but honestly, enough stuff is unisex that even if I had girls, I wouldn't bother having another set of bins.  The point of this system is simplicity, and that it's not only outgrown stuff, it's out of season stuff and extra stuff.  If you have a boy, let's just call the frilly pink dress "extra" and leave it in the bin.
  

  • Now label your shelving unit, one shelf per family member

  • Designate a central place for dirty laundry.  If you have a laundry chute, great.  If you don't, I'd recommend having family members toss laundry down the stairs, maybe into a large laundry basket sitting at the bottom of the stairs.  Seriously, when you want to do laundry, you don't want to go traipsing around the house and up stairs searching for dirty clothing.  And you don't want dirty clothing overflowing hampers and draped all over the house until laundry day.  Just have a chute or a system so your family members can get it in the central place, the first time, and you don't have to go get it on laundry day.
    
  • Finally, designate clean clothing storage.  The requirements are that it be easy for your family member to put his own laundry away, even if he's two.  And even if he has ADD.  This means no dresser drawers, which are disaster for children and ADDers.  It also means no hangers, because if an ADDer has to take an extra step with a hanger, he will just drape it over the bed or leave it in a heap on the floor.

  Here is what works for us:  for the boys, one underbed box and one drawer for each boy.  The underbed box holds four pair athletic pants, six pair pants/jeans, ten shirts/sweaters/sweatshirts.  The drawer holds underwear and pajamas.  Label, label, label. 
  
  For the baby:  a regular five-drawer bureau.  Drawer one:  undershirts and socks.  Drawers two and three:  Shirts and pants.  Drawer four: one-piece outfits.  Drawer five:  pajamas.  Label, label, label.
  
  For the adult ADDers in the house, open shelving.  I am personally using wire cubes right now.  Mike is building shelves into his closet. 
  
  If clothes need hung, use hooks or these clips from Ikea (they're for curtains, you could probably also get them at Target or Bed, Bath & Beyond or something).  Do not expect a young child or an ADDer of any age to use hangers.
  
  Finally, each family member needs a designated place for "clirty" clothes.  These are clothes that were worn once, but can be worn again because they're  not mussed, visibly dirty, or stinky.  For us, that would be two hooks each for clothing and pajamas get placed under the pillow.
  
  

  • Decide how many clothes each family member needs in a week.  It will be individual, but decide it, because hand-me-downs/gifts/all manner of extra clothing will sneak in and overflow your storage if you're not careful.  The whole point is to make it easy and simple, and to keep clothing from being draped all over your house!  For my boys, it's ten tops, ten bottoms.  We don't dress up much, but if we needed "Sunday best" or whatever, it would be two more outfits that are nicer and kept separate from the everyday wear, probably in my room and under my control so they're not worn to play in the mud.  For me, it's five "yoga pants" type outfits and five "jeans or khakis" type outfits, plus a few nicer outfits.  I currently have "extra" nicer outfits because I just quit my two-day-a-week office job, and don't need so many anymore.  They need to go into storage in the laundry room.  My husband wears uniforms to work, so he needs about five "jeans or khakis" type outfits and just a couple "workout clothes" and "yard work" type outfits. 
    

  3)  OK, you're ready for the system.  Everything is in place, ready to go.  Now, go!
  
  On your laundry day (I need two laundry days a week because I can't devote a whole day, seeing as how I have a baby who wants some of my time) devote your time to laundry and related tasks.  That means, on laundry day, you're mostly in the laundry room while you're doing laundry.  Don't try to throw in a load and then come up and make dinner.  Stay in the laundry room.
  
  Whatever will you do there?  Well, is your laundry room neat and tidy?  If you're an ADDer like me, probably not.  Is your mending caught up?  If you're like me, you have sixteen things in the mending basket that need patched/altered/button sewn on.   My laundry room is situated in the basement, and if I ever get the laundry area completely cleaned and organized, I can branch out into the rest of the horribly overcrowded, overcluttered, messy basement storage.  Don't worry, there will be plenty of laundry-related/laundry room-related things for you to do on laundry day, in between sorting/folding/ironing if you do that.
  
  If you discipline yourself to only do laundry- and clothing-related tasks while laundry is in the washer, you'll almost completely eliminate that lovely experience of going down to put laundry in only to find a pile of wet, stinking laundry in the washer that's been there mildewing for days.
  
  System step one, if it's clothing and it's in your house, it's either part of the family member's allotment of clean, folded, well-fitting and in-season clothing and is in clean clothing storage, or it's in the laundry chute.  Do not any longer allow clothing to be draped all over the house.  It will take a little while, but "train" yourself and your family members to put all clothing in one of two places - the storage or the laundry chute.
  
  System step two, on laundry day, go down there and
  1.  Sort all the clothes in the laundry chute into your dirty clothes basket, and start a load
  2.  Fold clothing right out of the dryer.
  3.  If it's part of the family member's allotted clothing, put it, neatly folded, on his clean clothing shelf.
  4.  If it's out of season, or if you remember it fitting the kid a little tightly last time you saw it on him, put it, laundered and neatly folded, in a labeled plastic bin according to its size. 
  5.  When family members no longer have clean clothes on their shelves or in their underbed bins, it's time to visit the laundry room to bring some up and put it away.  Kids as young as 2 can do this.  If he's too young to carry up a stack of neatly folded laundry without spilling it everywhere, bag it up for him.  He can put away his laundry, and then drop the bag right back down the laundry chute to be refilled with clean clothing next laundry day. 
  6.  The laundry basket designated for clean laundry is for things too voluminous to carry up in a neat stack.  For us, this is bath towels, kitchen cloths, cloth diapers. 
  
  So there it is, in a nutshell.  Clothing is in one of two places, only.  We have clean (and clirty), well-fitting, in-season clothing storage that's adequate for the amount of clothing worn weekly and easy for each family member to manage.  We have a central place for all other clothing (being the clothing that's NOT clean, or well-fitting, or in season) that is well-labeled and easy for the laundry goddess to manage.  Clothing is in one of those two places, and the house is so much the better for it.
  
  It may seem overwhelming to think about taking your house from "clothing draped all over" to "a well-ordered laundry system" but you can do it!  My recommendation is to do it without thinking too much about it.  In other words, implement *my* system without overthinking it (which can cause paralysis in us ADDers) and without changing it too much right off the bat.  Just go get your supplies, label everything, and set it up. 
  
  I guarantee you'll have tweaks and changes here and there based on your family size and makeup, your family's habits, and so on.  But try not to think about what those tweaks and changes will be at the outset, so as not to paralyze yourself.
  
  You can do it!
  
  If you decide that you need to implement a laundry system, and this post was helpful to you at all, leave a comment to let me know!
  

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