How to stay on top of the laundry when you’re a busy mum

If you're the default laundry person in your household, you know what a drag it is to see the washing basket overflowing.

And let's be real - while we'd love for everyone in the family to do their own laundry, the reality for most of us mums is that we end up ding most, if not all of it.

Let's make it easier with a little routine that is easy to keep going even on rally busy weeks:

1. Wash One Load Every Single Day

Committing to a load a day might sound like extra work, but doing a single load daily is so much easier than facing a huge pile on the weekend.

You can make it a rhythm. Put a load on before bed, hang it out in the morning, bring in yesterday's dry stuff, and you're done! It's only really abut 15 minutes of actively doing stuff.

And you can skip the folding if you want to - I just dry my clothes directly on those slim felt hangers and once they are dry I put them straight into the wardrobe.

If it's raining, don't let yourself get behind, just hang the load on a portable indoor rack or clothes horse. There are plenty of different styles of clothes racks, hanging rails etc and you can always use the dryer for the stuff that needs help.

A few minutes of laundry each day is so much better than devoting your entire Saturday to it!

2. Give Every Person Their Own Washing Basket

I got rid of our big family dirty washing basket - it was too heavy to lift when it was full and meant there was no way the kids would even try to help. 

Switching to individual baskets meant that everyone could physically manage to lift their basket and take it to the washing machine, and each of our smaller baskets holds exactly one load of washing, so everyone knows when theirs is full, it's the next one to get washed.

You can keep the baskets in bedrooms or the bathroom, whatever works best for your family. 

3. Fewer Clothes Mean Less Washing

When wardrobes are stuffed full, dirty washing piles up because none needs to be washed for a couple of weeks. Own less, wash less!

If you get given hand-me-downs, say thank you, then go through them and only keep what you really need, then donate the rest. 

Try a capsule wardrobe! Pretend you're packing for a holiday and can only carry a small amount with you - then see how you go wearing just that for the next couple of weeks.

Aim for a nice rhythm, not perfection.

You'll still have days that are messier than others, or something will happen and you really can't get to that one load, but if you already have the momentum going, you won't feel those days as much and they'll be easy to recover from.

You're always going to have laundry to do. This just makes it smoother and easier.

If you give any of these ideas a try, let me know how you go with them!

 Marissa

Marissa Roberts

Organising tips to make life easier for busy mothers

​www.beautifullyorganised.com​

Should we prep for Christmas in November? Let’s have a FEEL GOOD Christmas this year 💗

Let’s lean into having a holiday season that feels really nice this year!

Everyone’s Christmas looks different and theres no right or wrong way to prep for it.

Make sure you take a bit of time to think about how you want to FEEL this holiday season as the head of your household, because your family takes their cue from you, and if you’re happy, that feeling will flow in to everyone else 💗💗💗

🏡 The 10 minute home reset

I'm someone who really loves to sit down and relax in a home that feels calm and tidy, and I've found the easiest way to make that happen most nights is with a 10-minute reset.

At the end of the day, I do a quick tidy of the areas that matter most for me, so the house is reset for the evening. It's helpful for the mornings too - I'm not tripping over things, I know where everything is, and I can grab what I need and go. Life is smoother and calmer.

Here's a realistic look at my 10 minute reset so you can use it as a guide to create your own:

It’s actually more about the habit than the time it takes.

My 10-minute reset isn’t always 10 minutes. I time mine with music. Two songs on Spotify is usually enough, and if the house is particularly messy, I’ll play three and do one section for each song - the kitchen, the bathroom, the lounge room.

You might need a song per area too, or even a bit longer on busy days. No problem! What makes the difference isn’t the exact time. It’s doing it every day, at around the same time, focusing on around the same things. The routine is really what makes this work.

Pick a time that fits your life.

My reset happens while dinner is cooking. The rice is in the rice cooker, the pasta is boiling or something’s in the oven, and I use that little pocket of waiting time to reset the house. That way, when I sit down to dinner, I’m done for the day.

For you, it might be after dinner or once the kids are in bed. Fit it in wherever it suits you. That’s the whole point: it’s easier to stick with when it fits your life.

My three zones.

I focus on three areas: the kitchen, the bathroom and the lounge room. Here’s exactly what I do in each.

Kitchen:

• Countertops clear
• Dishwasher running

Bathroom:

• Towels hung
• Dirty washing in the baskets
• Vanity top clear

Lounge room

• Toy / Devices away
• Tabletops cleared
• Remotes together in the remote holder
• Cushions back in place
• Shoes put away (there always seem to be shoes in my lounge room!)

Build your own version

Mine is kitchen, bathroom and lounge room. Yours might include bedrooms, the entryway or the laundry. To work out your zones, ask yourself:

• Which areas need to feel calm for me to relax in the evening?
• Which areas need to be clear so the morning runs smoothly?

Build your reset around those, pick a time that suits your day, choose your songs, and do it every day.

I hope this little peek into my routine inspires you to create your own! If you do, let me know how you go with it!

x Marissa

P.S. For more practical ways to make organising & running your home & life smoother, check out The Busy Mum’s Guide to Making Life Easier​.

Marissa Roberts

Organising tips to make life easier for busy mothers

​www.beautifullyorganised.com​

“Why does my house never feel tidy when I'm always decluttering?”

Good news! This is easy to fix 💗

If you're decluttering all the time and your home still never feels tidy, decluttering isn't your problem. It's more of systems / flow issue - How things come in, where they live, and who puts them away.

Every home is a little different, but these are the five things I look at with my organising clients when their house just never feels tidy.

Slow down what's coming in.

Is more coming into your home than going out? If you declutter regularly, your answer is probably "No way, heaps is going out!" but stuff tends to sneak in and we don't notice it..

Impulse purchases are one of the the culprits. If you tend to buy things and then forget to use them, forget you have them, and end up decluttering them pretty quickly, try this simple rule: Wait three days before you buy the thing you want. Usually by day two or three you won't care about it anymore - but if you, go ahead and buy it then.

Fewer things coming in means less to tidy!

Action it before you put it down.

This is for stuff like mail, bills, school notes, the little gift bags from events. From now on, don't put it down until you've actioned it. Then it goes in the bin.

Bills - pay them as soon as they arrive, then throw them out. Saving up an emergency fund makes this much easier, because you're not waiting until the due date.

School notes - sign them straight away. Pop money in an envelope and then straight into your child's school bag.

Freebies and random bits - decide on the spot it will live in if it's going to stay, or let it go immediately.

That piece of paper you put down "for later" is how piles start! Handle it as it comes in and it won't get the chance to build up.

Give everything a home, where you actually use it.

Does everything you own have a proper home? Most of the time, a house feels messy simply because things aren't put away. And if something doesn't have a set spot, it will just end up sitting out.

The key is to store things where they're used, not where you think they should go. Take scissors. Most people would keep them in the study. Mine live in the kitchen drawer, because that's where I use them most, opening packets. My "study" is really just a little table for my laptop, so scissors there make no sense for me. You'll have your own version of this.

Kitchen bench tops are a big one too. If yours are always cluttered, it's often because putting things back feels like a hassle. Store each item in the cupboard closest to where you use it, and getting it out and putting it away becomes quick and easy.

Do a quick daily reset.

Set a daily reminder on your phone, an alarm or a calendar event, at the same time each day, and call it "Daily reset." When it pops up, put on two of your favourite songs and do a quick pick-up around the house. Put things back where they belong, straighten the cushions, toys in the toy box, dirty washing in the basket, towels hung up, rubbish out, homework in school bags, that sort of thing.

Yes, this is stuff we know we should be doing, but it's hard to find the energy at the end of the day. Two songs makes it short, fun and doable. If your kids are toddler age or older, invite tell them to help and let them pick the songs to make it more fun for them and less work for you. Which leads me to...

Make tidying a whole-family job.

You don't have to be the only one who puts things away. Bring your kids and your partner into it.

It's so easy for tidying to become "mum's job" by default. When the kids are little, we put things away for them because they can't yet. Then we keep doing it because we know where everything goes and we're faster. Over time, everyone just assumes that's how it works. But then instead of the matriarch of the family, you're the maid. Yuck.

Sharing the load keeps you all managing the household together, rather than you just carrying it on your own.

What works for me is asking in the moment, and being specific:

"Can you just pause for a second and hang your towel up?"

"Can you put your toys away?"

"Can you pop your laptop back in your school bag?"

"Can you take your plate to the kitchen?"

Asking right then, and saying exactly what's needed, means it gets done now rather than "later." And with a bit of consistency, it can become a habit. Every family is different, and we shouldn't have to remind people, but let's face it, a quick reminder beats doing it all yourself every time.

Hope you found these ideas helpful - if you try them, let me know how you go with it!

x Marissa

Marissa Roberts

Organising tips to make life easier for busy mothers

​www.beautifullyorganised.com​

🏡 A Simple Way to Organise Your Pantry When You Have Young Kids

Your pantry is the place where you store your food. But it can also be a spot in your home that encourages your kids to get their own snacks rather than ask you to get one for them.

If you're a busy mum wanting to make your kids more independent, if you're looking to be more "mum" and less "maid", the way you set up your home can make a really big difference.

Most pantry organising advice is designed for a household of adults who can read labels, and put things back where they found them. Add an 8 year old into that picture and the system needs to work differently.

To make your life easier, design your pantry around who's actually using it.

Most pantries are organised top to bottom by category - snacks here, tins there, baking supplies up high. That's a perfectly logical system if the only person opening the door is you.

But if you've got kids who are old enough to want a snack and grab it themselves, an adult-logic pantry means one of two things happens. Either everything kid-appropriate is out of reach and you become the designated snack-getter for every single request, or everything is in reach and the pantry becomes a free-for-all the moment your back is turned.

The fix is to give the pantry a "kid zone".

Stop thinking of the pantry as one space and start treating it as two zones stacked on top of each other.

The bottom shelf (or a low drawer, if that's what you've got) becomes the kid zone. This is where anything your children are allowed to get themselves lives. Pouches, crackers, fruit bars, etc. Put them in a bin or basket they can pull out themselves, at a height they can reach without climbing.

Everything above that - the things you want to control the timing or portion of, the baking supplies, the stuff that isn't actually for snacking - goes higher up, out of reach and out of sight lines. If it's not at eye level, it's not front of mind.

And that's it! The system does the boundary-setting for you and encourages self sufficiency.

Kids can easily understand "the basket on the bottom is mine."

And because it's not precious - it's a basket, not a beautifully arranged shelf - it can take being pulled apart and shoved back in by little hands. "Easy to use" matters more than "looks pretty" when you're in the trenches of motherhood.

Want to try it?

Start with the bottom shelf or the lowest, most reachable drawer in your pantry. Clear it out, and fill it with three or four snack options you're happy for your kids to grab without asking. A basket or bin per category works well e.g. one for savoury, one for sweet, one for fruit.

Move anything currently sitting at that height that you don't want them accessing up onto a higher shelf.

Then call it the "kids's shelf" or the "kids drawer" and let them know that's their spot.

Done! Let me know how you go with it.

x Marissa

Marissa Roberts

Organising tips to make life easier for busy mothers

​www.beautifullyorganised.com​