Why is putting away clean laundry so overwhelming?
The sheer number of steps and coordination required makes the final stage of folding and storing clothes feel impossible to maintain. People end up endlessly fishing what they need out of baskets or leaving eternal piles of clean laundry on furniture. This constant clutter leaves them feeling defeated and ashamed, preventing them from even inviting friends over.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Living out of laundry baskets instead of putting clothes in dressers
- 2Doing one small load every single day to avoid pile-ups
- 3Going to a laundromat to wash and fold all loads simultaneously
- 4Washing each family member's clothes separately to skip sorting
- 5Hiring a housekeeper or mother's helper to manage the chore
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“folding clothes and putting them away feels overwhelming and a huge challenge for me.”source ↗
“the heaps of clothing everywhere are discouraging and I feel defeated.”source ↗
“I don’t even know where to begin and, even if I managed to put half of my clothes away, I’m not sure how I’d maintain it.”source ↗
“It’s keeping me from having friends over and I feel really bad about myself.”source ↗
“Are we just living with an eternal pile of clean laundry that never gets put away??”source ↗
“At home there are too many steps and stages, trying to interrupt household tasks to transfer from washer to dryer, doing it in stages, the hampers everywhere, that in itself requires the coordination of a military occupation and I can't handle that.”source ↗
“Drowning mainly... 90% of the time someone tells me they're out of clean underwear and I spend the day doing a mountain of laundry. Sometimes it gets folded and put away, most of the time its clean in a basket somewhere.”source ↗
“Most of the time we just fish around for what we need in a basket. I despise laundry and so does my wife.”source ↗
“The folding/put away is the hardest part.”source ↗
“I have a pile on the edge of the couch. If i can least get it sorted, ill put my son's and daughter's laundry away (3 and 1). My husband and I is a free-for-all.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2Washer and dryer sticking out in a tight hallway or entryway
- 4Dryer runs full cycle and spins fine but clothes stay wet
- 3How to get mold out of forgotten laundry
- 5How to air dry clothes indoors without mold or musty smells
- 2Clothes coming out of the wash covered in lint
- 2How to hand wash delicate clothes