We all like to complain about laundry, how it feels never ending and unless we all become nudists, it’s not going away. So I have a hack to share for the final step: putting clothes and linens away after they’re washed.

To start, I picked p about 8 small, round laundry baskets for about $2 each at Walmart. That means if they break or get ruined, I’m not out too much cash.

My dryer holds a lot more clothes than the basket does so I typically do 2 baskets to empty out the dryer.

Everything dry goes to the bed and gets dumped out and here’s where the magic begins:

Using my whole bed as a sorting surface, I will quick sort my clean laundry into a few piles:

• towels and sheets
• shirts/dresses to hang
• pants to fold
• pajamas
• socks/bras/underwear

Then I make a deal with myself, I only have to do one category at a time. It might mean pajamas and workout clothes first because there’s no folding involved, just stuff them into the bins in my closet.

Or I’ll match up socks and put away those items in my dresser. If there’s a pile that feels unwieldy then I’ll sort it down even further. For towels and sheets that might mean:

• wash cloths and hand towels for bathroom
• roll full sized body towels for master bath
• tea towels for kitchen
• cleaning rags for kitchen
• sheets and pillow cases
• blankets

Usually I don’t have all of those in one load but if I get backed up with 2-3 loads from the dryer then I might need to sort all of these categories.

The big benefit here is that once you get into the flow of one category it’s easy to complete them. Instead of putting away a towel then hanging a t-shirt, folding a pair of pants, matching socks, getting another towel… instead you just handle all the hanging items, then the folded stuff, then all sheets, etc.

Give it a try!

Bonus Tip: When you leave clean laundry on the bed, you have a natural deadline to put it away before bed. Whatever you do, don’t move those clean clothes to THE CHAIR.