Comments on: More than 15 ways to handle recurrent clutter

By: Andrea

Andrea — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 16:27:59 +0000

My new place has no dishwasher. So the dirty dishes pile up. I deal with it by having a dirty dish “home”. My dirty dishes live in a 15″ area of counter. When they overflow their space, they must be washed. This allows me space where I can cook without being crowded by dirty dishes. And it allows my husband (who could care less about mess and clutter, and who is our official Washer of Dishes) to do the dishes on his own schedule.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:08:23 +0000

Two things that changed my life in terms of kitchen clutter were (1) moving into an apartment in which the kitchen is not a separate room, but rather a wall and L-shaped counter along one wall of my living room, and (2) said kitchen having a dishwasher. Back when my kitchen was a separate room, it was easy to ignore all the crap piling up (including dirty dishes in the sink). Now that kitchen mess is part of the room in which I spend all my time, I am much more assiduous about keeping it under control as I go. (One exception is a collection of glasses that must be handwashed– they sit around on the counter waiting to be washed much longer than they should.)

By: Cliff

Cliff — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 02:58:44 +0000

The thing that changed MY life about laundry was utterly outsourcing it! I use the following two tricks: 1. for office attire, I recycle certain items and always wear a cotton underlayer (t-shirt and boxers), getting two (non-consecutive) days’ wear out of most items by mix-and-re-matching combinations; 2. everything else is cotton and goes to the “chinese laundry” (and expression some use, to mean, a wash-dry-fold service).

At first it seemed expensive. Then I worked out how much money in quarters I was dumping into the laundromat machines. At three wash loads (colors on cold, whites and linens on hot, delicates on gentle) x $1.75 to $2.50, plus about ten dry loads (ten minutes per .25, three dry-periods per wash load, etc.) I was spending about $15 a week at the laundromat. But at a dollar a pound, generally a drop-off laundry service costs me about $18 a week. The $3 difference often disappears depending on whether the office clothes made for a heavy dry-cleaning load that week or not. Add it all up, I was basically “paying myself” about .75 an HOUR to do the laundry work, losing roughly 2 hours a week.

Outsourcing laundry … and never paying a Maytag repairman again … smartest thing I ever did for my household. I don’t even SORT the laundry, I just dump the bag at the laundry lady. She does things good enough. Plus, her industrial washers have hotter water, better detergent, etc., than I could get in any coin-op machine.

By: liz

liz — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 13:36:57 +0000

The thing that changed my life, laundry-wise, was getting the large-capacity, front-loading washing machine. I have vast quantities of laundry to do, due to the athletic pursuits of my husband and two teenage boys. I can have a pile of laundry as high as the light switch and it’s done in two loads.

By: Amy D

Amy D — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:56:10 +0000

I get dinner started and then unload and start reloading the dishwasher with any dishes that have accumulated during the day. Then I can just put in the dinner dishes and the counters are clean.

Also, if I’m watching TV, I use commercial breaks to do stuff like dishes, laundry, dusting, etc. It breaks up the monotony of chores, and it makes me get up from the couch every ten minutes or so.

By: Carmen

Carmen — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:05:40 +0000

I bought one of these http://www.laundrybuddy.net/ and have found it great to keep my laundry under control. I just unhook a bag and off I go to the washer, all the clothes are already pre-sorted. It's made a big difference in taming my laundry clutter.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 14:48:33 +0000

Put your bread in the fridge. It will last a lot longer in there.