Episode 217 – 10 ways to shrink your laundry pile

If your laundry is the bane of your life then this is the podcast for you. We are going to talk about 10 things you need to think about if you want to shrink that ever-growing laundry pile.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
[00:00:00] Ingrid: If your laundry is the bane of your life, then this is the podcast for you. We're going to talk about the 10 things you need to think about if you want to shrink that ever growing laundry pile.

[00:00:13] Hello and welcome listeners. I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley. If you're new to the Declutter Hub podcast, you're so welcome here. What you'll find is reality, empathy, and advice by the bucket loads, and we wanted to tell you also our show notes page that you can find on declutter help.com/ 2 1 7. You can watch the podcast on YouTube.

[00:00:37] There you can find useful links about things that we talk about and most importantly, There is a subscribe button to follow our show so it pops into your notifications each Friday, and you can also leave comments in our show notes. And we love reading what you guys are up to and how you feel about this podcast.

[00:00:57] So don't forget to leave as a comment. I know. 

[00:01:01] Lesley: So back to 10 things, Ingrid, which we absolutely love. Yes. These 10 things are quite meaty. Quite meaty. 10 things, aren't they? But we're going to talk about five don'ts and five dos. See what we did there, what your dad's. 

[00:01:21] Ingrid: Yes. Yes. And it's all about laundry, which absolutely is the bane of people's lives.

[00:01:28] I mean, as soon as you see the bottom of your laundry basket, somebody throws in something and you're like, oh, I've just literally caught up on everything. It was empty for a whole 10 minutes, and now there's laundry again. Why? Oh, why? 

[00:01:45] Lesley: Yes, Ingrid. So our first don't is don't have a chair robe or a Ford robe, because that is not going to help you in your quest for sorting out your laundry.

[00:01:58] Why is it not going to help you in your quest? Because you're not going to know whether things are clean or dirty. And even if something's on the floor, by the time it's languished under loads of other stuff on a chair. Or even worse being trodding on, on the floor, then it might need to go through the laundry sooner than it otherwise would've done if it had been hung up nicely.

[00:02:19] Ingrid: Yes, you're, you're kind of your own worst enemy, especially with the floor draw because you are right lety, you don't step over it, you step on it, and then although it was clean, it's now dirty again and you have to wash it and dry it and do the whole thing over again, and you've just given yourself a bunch of extra work.

[00:02:37] Lesley: Do you know what I've done? I've got to say this now, I've got to say this. So I've been doing some, uh, sort of refurbishments to the flat in London. Yeah. And so we're doing a, a bedroom and I've bought a chair 

[00:02:52] Ingrid: and I'm like, 

[00:02:52] Lesley: why have I done that? Because it is my husband who's down there most of the time and it's literally going to be piled up with stuff the whole time, isn't it?

[00:03:00] Yeah. So I don't even know why I'd done it. I did it because it would fit in there and it looked really nice and now I'm like, mistake. It's like my rule number one, I've gone against my own rules about having chairs in bedrooms and bought one cause it looked nice at, um, home Sense last week. But anyway, so I'm completely going to be doing more laundry when I'm down there.

[00:03:18] All my husbands is actually, um, because he is going to totally have a chair drop. Totally. Yeah. 100% chair job is coming to that flat. I know it is. So I've, but number one we're saying though, but I've already done my own worst thing. But anyway, let's move on to number two. Yes. 

[00:03:35] Ingrid: Don't leave your mending pile.

[00:03:38] We all have clothes that need to have a button sewn back on, a little mending things to do, a little hem taken up or down. And we leave it because it's like, oh, it's one of these jobs. It's a repair job. It's going to take me forever. I need to find my, my little scissors and my sewing kit, and ugh, I just can't even be bothered.

[00:04:00] And then it gets on the bottom of a chair drop, or it gets in the bottom of a laundry basket, or there's a little. Pile of stuff that needs to be mended and the pile just grows and grows and grows, and then you've got another pile of clothes somewhere, and that's when laundry then immediately seems to start to get out of control because as soon as there's a pile of clothes somewhere, it attracts like a magnet.

[00:04:25] Lesley: I know, so don't leave your mending pile any longer than you need to. Or in fact, your dry cleaning pile, which is another kind of example of that kind of thing, isn't it, Ingrid? Yes. 

[00:04:36] Ingrid: Well, talking about dry cleaning, Lesley, if you know that laundry is not your strongest point, stop buying clothes that need hand washing, dry cleaning, or a lot, and lots of ironing because you just, you're making it difficult for yourself.

[00:04:54] Lesley: I know a lot of modern clothes. Definitely built to be easy on the laundry, aren't there these days? There's not that many things now. I mean, I'm sure there are, of course there still aren't things that need hand washing and dry cleaning and stuff. But in general, even suits and things that used to be dry clean, only now quite often you can put them into the machine.

[00:05:15] So I think things have got easier on the sort of dry cleaning in front, haven't they? And certainly on the ironing, a lot of fabrics these days are kind of. Crinkle free and stuff like that. You know, school shirts for kids are kind of non iron cause they've got special coating on them. So I think times are kinder to us than it was in the past, aren't they, in terms of the types of fabrics that we're working with and stuff like that.

[00:05:37] Mm-hmm. Uh, but in general, you know, do look at those labels. I know loads and loads of our members are like, we never buy anything that says that it needs ironing. I purposely buy things that don't need ironing and certainly not dry cleaning or hand washing. 

[00:05:51] Ingrid: Yeah, and I think, I think it's because we, it's one of the things we forget, right?

[00:05:56] Because we're in the shops, we're like, oh, that's nice and that looks good. But we don't think about the practicalities and we don't think about looking at the label like, what? What temperature does this need washing? Is this dry cleaning? Is this silk? And does it need a special treatment? Is this, has this got lots and lots of wool?

[00:06:13] Or is it a hundred percent wool? And does it need hand washing? Because wool, I know there's a wool setting on your washing machine, but. Well, I would, if you can probably hand wash because I think it's, it's better and it will last longer. Cashmere. Oh. But all of these things, you give yourself a lot of extra jobs.

[00:06:32] I. 

[00:06:32] Lesley: You do. Absolutely. So don't buy things if you want your laundry. I'm not saying don't buy things that need dry cleaning. We're saying if you want that laundry pile to shrink, things like that are going to add to it and sit there for a little bit longer waiting to happen. Yeah. So really, really important.

[00:06:49] So let's move on to number four, which is quite a big problem among amongst our community, Ingrid, which is perfectionism. And we're going to talk about perfectionism when it comes to lingerie. So what types of things, Ingrid. Do people do with their laundry that we would consider to be a little bit on the perfectionist side?

[00:07:06] Ingrid: Well, I think, first of all, I think some people really get hung up on is it a dark, is it a white, is it the light colored, is it a certain fabric? These are socks that I want to wash separately. I'm not going to throw my clots in with my towels. I want to wash, wash my clots separately from my other clothes.

[00:07:29] And it's like they can, it can become a very complicated system. And then what you end up with is lots of small little piles that all need separate washing. So, Well, we are a bit more of the Let's keep it simple system, aren't we, Lesley? 

[00:07:44] Lesley: Yeah, definitely. Now you talk about people who think, is this a dark, is it a white?

[00:07:49] I mean, it would be nice if my kids, when they went away to university, even considered the fact that dark. Fabrics run into white fabrics, so you know, yes, coloreds and darks. Okay. Fact, they're reasonably interchangeable at times, but whites are not. Whites need to stay with whites, and we all know that. But my kids, I'm like, I've literally, you've had these clothes for so many years.

[00:08:09] You go off to university and everything comes back at Christmas, gray, everything. All three of them. Guaranteed all their white things come back gray. You've still got this to come because they go off and they can only afford one thing and they put it all in together and then it comes back and I'm like, ah, what have you done?

[00:08:26] Like ruined your clothes. So anyway, so definitely do separate out your darks and you whites, but you don't need to really be that rigid in terms of temperatures and things like that. It's really about getting the bulk of things through. Now we're not saying be reckless in terms of what you're doing. But you know, for, for Ingrid and I, we keep it quite simple.

[00:08:44] On a 60 degree wash or a 30 degree wash, maybe the odd things goes into hand wash. But other than that we keep it quite simple and we're not on that perfectionist kind of route when it comes to laundry. because that's something that can really be a barrier, isn't it? Yeah, 

[00:08:59] Ingrid: definitely. I mean, there's not a lot I wash on hand wash anyway.

[00:09:04] One of the things, uh, is, is bathing and swimming suits, because they all have kind of that, that stretchy kind of fabric. So I'm always careful not to throw a bathing suit into my, uh, my washing machine. And I kind of, after I come back from holidays, I'm like, Ooh, I need to grab those quickly and hand hand washing and soak them all.

[00:09:19] But that's about it. Lesley, most of it goes into my washing machine because I just, my life is too busy to have all these special things going on. I didn't 

[00:09:30] Lesley: even know that you couldn't put, I mean, well, you can't put a, a, a swimming costume into a washing No. I just thought you couldn't put it in the dry hair because 

[00:09:38] Ingrid: of the Lycra.

[00:09:39] No, it, it's, it's also not because the, the, the power of the, the, what do you call it? The drum. The drum and the, the, the, it is bad for the elasticity. Oh 

[00:09:51] Lesley: yeah. Well, mine could do with a bit less elastic it or I'd be a bit more, if it's a bit more forgiving, if the elastic goes, I might not feel that I put that half stone away on when it was on holidays.

[00:10:03] So it's all good. All good. I shall continue putting my swimming costume firmly in the washing machines so that it kind of gives a little That's so, so we're still talking about don't Ingrid. Yeah. So let's go for our final, don't, and this is a big one. Yeah, this is a big one. This is the crux of getting your laundry pile down, 

[00:10:24] Ingrid: isn't it?

[00:10:26] You know what? And it sounds completely against what people think, because people who struggle with laundry think I need to get myself some more socks and some more underwear. Because that's good for me because then I don't feel I have to do laundry all the time and I still have stuff in my cupboards.

[00:10:46] And what we know from experience, from working with clients in our own homes, actually, the more socks and underwear and those are the kind of the main, the main culprits you have. The more gigantic piles of laundry we see. Yeah. So less is more and not more is better. 

[00:11:06] Lesley: Yeah, exactly. I. It. It is obvious really, isn't it?

[00:11:11] The less stuff you have, the less laundry you're going to have. Do you know what I mean? So I think it's really important to think about decluttering in relation to laundry because once you start to get your clothes under control, you start to make better choices. You start to be more intentional. Things last a little bit better.

[00:11:29] All of those things that we teach when it comes to dec clutching clothes and wardrobes are going to kind of have a knock on effect with your laundry. So do be careful not to overbuy. Comes as says from a place of. It comes from a place of panic quite often. And so people have, have not kept on top of their laundry and, and we all need knickers and socks and bras and underpants, don't we?

[00:11:52] And so it comes from a place of panic where we haven't had those things that we absolutely need. And so we go out and we think that the solution is buying more. So it's super important to keep those to a minimum. It's more important to keep your laundry cycle moving. Forward fast than it is to buy more stuff to go into that laundry cycle.

[00:12:10] Ingrid: Yeah. I mean, I've got two weeks of worth of underwear and brass and socks, but I don't have a hundred pairs of knickers because the problem is then also you can't store that kind, those kinds of volumes. So that means that once you've. It actually is washed. It ends up on a drying pile somewhere, and then it ends up on a folding pile, but then it can't go anywhere because all of the drawers and and shelves are too full to hold that mini amount.

[00:12:37] And that's when you get piles of laundry everywhere, and that's when things that are dirty get put on top of it, or the floor drop gets moved from the floor to the bed, and then it gets muddled, and then you don't know what's going on. And then you think it's so dirty laundry and you have to do it all again.

[00:12:54] So it's kind of a vicious circle that you end up with. So actually thinking, I need more socks and underwear. Yes, to a certain extent we need a nice amount big so we can actually, you don't have to wor want to wash your underwear every day, but you don't need a hundred of everything because it's just the volumes are just too big.

[00:13:13] Lesley: Hugh, we are, we're, we're running the risk of getting quite irate at this point. Ingrid, so I think it's time to go to a break. Yes, 

[00:13:19] Ingrid: let's go to a break.

[00:13:21] Hi everyone. Welcome back to part two of 10 Things to Shrink Your Laundry Pile. Now we've been talking about lots of don'ts, five don'ts.

[00:13:31] So Lesley, let's talk about five dos. Yes. We 

[00:13:34] Lesley: love to be positive, don't we? We're not negative nuns. We like to be positive Peters, is that right? I no 

[00:13:41] Ingrid: idea. I 

[00:13:43] Lesley: just made that up negative. I'm sorry if you called Nancy say, I don't why I just picked on that random name, positive Peters, but anyway, you know what I mean?

[00:13:52] You know what I'm getting. We like to, not a positive note. So let's do some, do some positive things that you can do that are going to have that impact on your laundry pile. Well, 

[00:14:00] Ingrid: first of all, what you do want to have, Is a regular laundry pattern, and I know it sounds super boring, and the last thing we want is boring, but trust us on this one.

[00:14:14] Just do your towels on a Monday and a dark load on a Tuesday, and a white load on a Wednesday and a bedding on a Thursday. And then you've got 80% of your laundry 

[00:14:26] Lesley: done. That sounds very complicated to me. That sounds very complicated. I'm a lot more sporadic than that. Right. Lot more just chuck 

[00:14:32] Ingrid: a load of laundry in every day.

[00:14:34] Whatever. It's, 

[00:14:35] Lesley: that's more my, my kind of thing. Yeah. I'm like, we're going back to kind of, you know, the, the kind of forties with those kind of daily cycles, 

[00:14:43] Ingrid: but it's worked like clockwork. 

[00:14:45] Lesley: Do you do that? Yeah. Bed on a Thursday and towels on a Monday. 

[00:14:49] Ingrid: Really? Yeah. Normally I do towels on a Tuesday. Yeah. 

[00:14:54] Lesley: The things, the things that I find out in these podcasts, honestly, the difference between you and I just, I don't even know why we're together.

[00:15:02] That's fine. Just do some laundry and keep the cycle moving forward. That's the most important thing. Don't. If you want to do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, that works for you. That consistency, that pattern, it absolutely will work. That wouldn't work for me because I'm just much more sporadic than that. But the important thing is that you keep it moving through really, really important and that you always get into that bottom of that basket.

[00:15:25] There's so many houses at homes that we go into, Ingrid, and people are never get into the bottom of the basket, are they? And so you need to make a. A habit of getting to the bottom of the basket and getting that throughput. 

[00:15:35] Ingrid: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I do my folding on a Saturday. Am I ironing on a Sunday?

[00:15:40] Let's see. I don't have a creature of habit. What can I tell you? 

[00:15:43] Lesley: I could understand that cause that actually kind of weekend. So you've got to get those things done. But I didn't realize, so you do fold folding on a Saturday? Yeah. Then what did you do on a Sunday? Put in ironing. Oh, ironing on a Sunday. So what happens if you go in out.

[00:15:57] Ingrid: Well, I, I do ironing every other week, not every week, so I kind of look at, 

[00:16:01] Lesley: but you're allowed to go out every other Sunday. Say, if I said to you, Ingrid, can we go out? Do you fancy a lunch at, oh, no, I can't do that cause I'm doing my iron. No, but I would 

[00:16:10] Ingrid: do my ironing on a Saturday then. Oh, would you? 

[00:16:13] Lesley: Very flexible.

[00:16:18] Ingrid: Alright, let's just move on. I, I can see a battering of Ingrid going on, coming on here. So let's just move on to the next one. Talking about ironing, do iron regularly 

[00:16:30] Lesley: and don't, and with how many times have we talked about how to say the word iron? How many 

[00:16:36] Ingrid: times I just can't, I just don't want to do it. 

[00:16:40] Lesley: I know you do know how to do it, so I wonder how they probably say it differently in different parts of the world anyway.

[00:16:47] It's probably just me with my lunch turns and stuff, but no, and it's a hard word to say. It's very counterintuitive. Yes. To not say they 

[00:16:54] Ingrid: are. Yeah. Ironing. Yes. 

[00:16:58] Lesley: Go on, try it. Go on, try it every time we 

[00:17:03] Ingrid: you ironing regularly until it is done. I mean, Yes, I know there are people who are like, okay, I'm just going to do one thing.

[00:17:12] The one thing I'm going to wear today, I'm going to iron and that's it. But I'm like, I just, every two weeks I just spend two hours. I watch a film, I do it all in one go, and I've got, but I mean, uh, people have different ideas, but what we don't want is for clothes to live on a. Chair somewhere or on over a banister somewhere that to ready to be ironed for months on end because it just, then you can't wear it, you can't use it.

[00:17:40] And it's these piles of things all the time. So get on top of that. It's so satisfying and I know, and if you're like, well, you know what? I hate it. Then get an ironing lady. Or stop buying stuff that need ironing. Yes. 

[00:17:55] Lesley: Yes, exactly. Good, good, good hints and tips. And there's no better way to spend a Sunday than iron is Ring it Well, I watched 

[00:18:03] Ingrid: the Formula one, Lesley, so 

[00:18:05] Lesley: I mean, yeah, well that's the thing.

[00:18:06] You know, the interesting thing is you need to, you need to kind of, um, do a couple of things. A lot of people, I know that loads of people do the iron. Wow. They are. Listening to our podcast. Yeah. So a lot of people do that, don't they? A 

[00:18:18] lot 

[00:18:18] Ingrid: of people. Thank you Iron. Iron in people for ironing and listening to us.

[00:18:22] We appreciate you. I know, 

[00:18:24] Lesley: exactly. Tell us if you are somebody that does your ironing and listens to us in our comments, we would absolutely love to know, wouldn't we? But yeah, again, with the ironing, it's really important to get on top of it and it's important to get to the bottom of that basket. So there's been a thing here about getting to the bottom of the basket.

[00:18:40] Very important to keep these clothes nice and fresh, to make sure they're going through that cycle. So your laundry cycle includes your washing and it includes your ironing, includes your putting away as well. So we have a whole course in the membership, don't we All about this? The, um, laundry cycle? Yeah.

[00:18:57] And it's, it's a good, good course, isn't it English, because we talk about. Everything that you need to know about laundry to get control. Cause it's a massive 

[00:19:05] Ingrid: problem. Yeah, absolutely. And we've had new members who said, I've done your laundry course. And actually it just really changed the way I feel about laundry and because we're getting, they're getting more and more decluttered.

[00:19:16] Yeah. It's much easier to put it all away and yeah. It's, it's a game changer. It's an absolute and that's why we did a whole course about it and, um, yeah, it's great. Right. Let's move on to number three of the things we need to do. Oh, well 

[00:19:31] Lesley: this is like literally the worst thing, isn't it? So you say to your kids, tired of your bedroom, whatever age your kids are, and that includes young adults as well.

[00:19:41] And so their version of putting something away, which is hard, putting it on a hanger or folding it up to put it away, isn't, they're just putting the washing basket to be 

[00:19:50] Ingrid: washed, aren't they? 

[00:19:53] Lesley: They're just, do your kids do that? I bet they do. They must do. Or please tell me that your 

[00:19:57] Ingrid: kids do that. Uh, I think I'm still on the safe side of this.

[00:20:02] Lesley: Still on the safe side of it? No. Honestly, my kids would rather put something in the washing basket cause then it's somebody else's problem than put it away themselves. I know I'm not on my own surely with this. I don't, I'm going to ask Max Ann. Cause I don't believe it. You just don't realize, you just don't realize, Ingrid, that that's what they're doing.

[00:20:25] Mm. Okay. And Leah, Leah's terrible actually, and, and Leah's probably, but she stuffs things underneath her. The, the um, hanging pile as well. She stuffs the, you know, like where shoes would be in a wardrobe. Yeah, yeah. She just shoves things in there rather than puts them on hankers as well. They're terrible and that doesn't help either.

[00:20:43] So, you know, so I dunno quite what the answer is. Maybe. Get your kids to leave home. 

[00:20:51] Ingrid: Yeah. Or put them in charge of the washing and ironing, maybe then they'll learn. Yes, yes, 

[00:20:55] Lesley: exactly. Get 'em through their own washing and ironing when they're able. But then you've got this problem that they put blacks and whites in together, or you know, if I leave them to the, I do typically do the washing and ironing because before I know it, they've got put something that I've put in the washing machine and they've stuck it in the dryer.

[00:21:12] And then I've not got it anymore because its shrunk. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So I do typically try and do it myself just because I fear the worst if I let them get involved. Um, but they definitely, definitely children, if you ask them to tide you up, we'll put things in a washing basket that absolutely don't need to be washed.

[00:21:31] Yeah. They want to wash things every 

[00:21:32] Ingrid: day. Cause it's your skin up their nose, is it? Exactly. And I I, I'm just not there yet that they changed like outfits five times. So I'm like, max is all quite, quite relaxed anyway, so, but Anne's still not on the, I need to have five different outfits and then Splunk everything on the floor.

[00:21:47] I'm not, just not there yet. So I'm waiting for this moment. 

[00:21:50] Lesley: You wait, you wait. Yeah. We called this podcast in two years and he was like, 

[00:21:53] Ingrid: oh yeah, yeah. There was a time.

[00:21:59] All right, well let's move on to the next one then, Lesley. And that is towels. I mean, wet. Damp towels on floors. Huh? I see them everywhere. 

[00:22:11] Lesley: Yes, exactly. And so I think the key is to try and get a system in place. It's really important to try and get a system in place where you encourage. This could involve many, many ways of working depending on who you're working with.

[00:22:23] You encourage your family and yourself if you are also, um, doing this yourself to make sure that you hang these towels up so they've got an opportunity to dry. Because as soon as they start to kind of. If they go on the floor and they're all crumpled up together, they can't dry properly, there's a chance that they're going to get a little bit smelly, a little bit manky, a little bit moldy, and then they're going to have to be washed more often than they need to be.

[00:22:46] Yeah. So do get in the habit of picking towels up and not leaving them crumpled on the floor and giving them at least an opportunity to 

[00:22:53] Ingrid: dry out. Yeah, and I think, you know, just a simple hook system, you know, is, is all you need. You don't need complicated systems and towel racks and, and all of those things.

[00:23:03] Just a hook for every towel, I think, because that's what happens as well is that there's like one hook and there's like, People try to put three or four towels on 'em and it just doesn't work, and that's still, they don't dry properly, so they get a new one from the cupboard because the other one is still not dry enough.

[00:23:19] So you just need a cup. If you've got the space, you just need some extra hooks or you need to find, I remember ages ago, let's say you're telling me that one of your clients who had a lot of kids had a different color towel for every kid, so nobody was confused about whose style it was. Yeah, exactly. I mean, brilliant for larger families.

[00:23:36] Lesley: Yeah, definitely really good if you can get, if you can get those systems to work. But some, it takes a lot of work. You know, the, the problem is all of these things when it comes to kids, you feel like you're constantly moaning and nagging and all this kind of stuff, and sometimes you just think, I'll just pick up the towel myself.

[00:23:53] Do you know what I mean? Don't you? Yeah. Sometimes it's easier to just do it yourself, but sometimes you do have to do the nagging so that they learn and they can put that into practice in future life. 

[00:24:01] Ingrid: Yeah, I think what, what, what hap what helped in this house is I've got four, five hooks. And so four, each family member has got his own hook and we, we all know, which is our own hook.

[00:24:12] So we can have the same color towels or lots of them are gray or white, but then at least everybody knows which hook the towel goes onto. So, and I actually in the beginning was like, Put it back on your own, hook your own, hook your own. And they're like, okay, this is my hook. So I think that helps a lot. I think when you don't have a system like that in place and everybody just randomly hangs stuff everywhere, it's easy.

[00:24:34] They're going to go, I don't know what's mine is anymore. And get a new one. 

[00:24:38] Lesley: Definitely. Lot of systems in your house. You've not got a Monday hook and a Tuesday hook? No.

[00:24:46] Ingrid: No. Lesley. Lesley. No, no, no. Right. Let's talk about the last do, and that's also one that is very, very helpful. Having the right laundry baskets now. People might go, what are they going on about? But there's laundry baskets and laundry baskets there, 

[00:25:05] Lesley: Lesley. And there are laundry baskets. And laundry baskets, and if you have the wrong one, then it can be a real problem.

[00:25:11] If one's too, they could be too small. There are some that are too big and they encourage big piles. The piles the thing. If you don't, you know, up to the brim. And actually that might be three loads of washing in one laundry basket. They might be too small and you've got to deal with it. Um, earlier than you would ordinarily.

[00:25:27] There might be ones that are quite complicated and they've got four, four or five different um, sections, which seems like a fantastic idea, but sometimes it's over complicated because every system has got to be maintained by somebody. And so it's really important to get the right laundry basket. Do we need laundry baskets in the bedrooms?

[00:25:45] Do we need them in the landing? Do we need them in the bathroom? Where are these laundry baskets going to be? Who's going to be responsible for taking the laundry basket to the place that you do the laundry? And so we need to make sure that the person who's responsible for that can carry that laundry basket.

[00:25:58] Do we want an inside that comes out or that sits in? There are so many things to do with the laundry baskets, and so getting the right one is absolutely critical. So it's not a decision to take lightly. 

[00:26:09] Ingrid: No. And I kind of hear, I can kind of see our listeners going really? I had, I hadn't even thought about that.

[00:26:18] Yes, but what we, we see it, don't we Lesley? We see it and we see a lot of broken laundry baskets that are like, you have to hold them in a certain way, otherwise you might cut yourself on the one of those plastic, uh, hard strips that's broken loose. And it's like you need to have good equipment. And I think it's the same.

[00:26:38] You need to have a proper Hoover in your house and one that works properly because then you can do, and it's the same with laundry baskets. If your laundry baskets are wonky and broken and half falling apart, then laundry becomes an even bigger chore than it already is, and you're just making life hard for yourself.

[00:26:55] And that's why we're talking about laundry baskets and people who are driving and are going, I can't even believe it. But trust us, we notice from experience, 

[00:27:06] Lesley: it can be something really simple that quite often the interesting thing about us in our job isn't it, whether, whether it's somebody that shares something with us in the membership, or whether it's clients when we're going into their houses, we'll go, why don't you change this?

[00:27:18] because that doesn't look as if it's great for you. And the problem is you become kind of clutter blind. You don't see these things in your houses. And it could be something as simple as a fresh pair of eyes going. Pat's just not going to work for you. Why don't you think about making this small change? Let's face it, a laundry basket's going to be anywhere.

[00:27:34] You can get a laundry basket for 5, 6, 7 pounds. Of course, there are more expensive ones out there. It might be such a simple change that's really going to be transformational and that's going to make a big difference. And that's a nice thing about our job. It's a lot of what we do is not rocket science, but the people that are living it every day are not seeing it.

[00:27:51] And that's the thing, isn't it? Yeah. And it takes somebody else to say, We know that those kind of things typically don't work, or why do you think that's going to work for you? Or what's not working for you in your house? And so it's about evaluating all those things. Yeah. A lot of people wouldn't even consider in the Declutter Hub that we talk about laundry, but honestly, that's one of the biggest problems when it comes to clutter, isn't it, Ingrid?

[00:28:12] Yeah. Because it's stuff that's everywhere that needs to be dealt with, and so it's just. More of the same. And it's a big organisational problem, isn't it? 

[00:28:21] Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah. And that's why, like you said before, we've got a course, we've got a whole course about linen cupboards. We've got a course about, um, uh, you know, kitchens and clothing and shoes and how you need to fold and how you need to hang and what kind of hangers we like.

[00:28:36] Because that's all connected to laundry as well, because a kitchen that's maybe where your washing machine lives, you know, it, it's, it's all connected together and that's why we've got, you know, so many, uh, fantastic information in our membership. So if you're like, yes. Laundry is a bug bear. I need to learn how to do this.

[00:28:56] Come and check out our membership. Or if you're like, oh, I want to talk to Les Ingrid about their membership, because I want to know more book a discovery call with me. Anyway, I hope that you listeners have learned something and have had a chance to laugh with us a little bit about this whole laundry dos and dome situation.

[00:29:15] And, um, we just appreciate you listening in week in, week out to us next week, I'm talking to my good friend Ellen Faye, about productivity and how you can work best for how you are wired. So that's going to be a very interesting one. So thanks for being here. I'm going to see you next week.
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