Fresh Tips from the Laundry Room
Adapted from Arthritis Today®*, the health magazine published by the Arthritis Foundation.
Laundry day doesn't have to leave you feeling wrung out. With pacing, planning, some helpful gadgets and - if you're lucky - cooperative family members, you can have clean clothes and energy left for more enjoyable activities. Try the following:
- Make a great workspace. One of the best things you can do to make laundry less stressful is to create a comfortable space in which to do it. A low, wide shelf or table and chair beside your washing machine lets you load and unload your washer and dryer without bending and stooping. When you need to stand, use a padded mat.
- Roll 'em out. Use a wheeled laundry cart or hamper to make collecting laundry from different rooms easier. Use it again when it's time to distribute clean laundry.
- Color code. If you're doing the laundry for a large family, the task can seem overwhelming. One way to cope is to assign each family member a color and keep several colored bins near the washing machine where you can deposit their clean clothes for "self-service" pickup.
- Know your limits. When you have more laundry than you can manage, maybe what you need is not a laundry day but several laundry days. Doing a load each day for three days may be easier to do than three loads in one day. Or try breaking your laundry work into several smaller chores - sorting, folding, hanging and putting away - and set a 15-minute time limit for each task. Use an egg timer to remind you of your limits.
- Leave it to the pros. If keeping up with laundry is getting to be more than you can handle, it may be worth the expense to use a laundry service. For a fee, they'll wash, fold and maybe even pick up and deliver.