‘Completion days’ are the answer to laundry doom piles, pro organizer claims – here’s how this hack can instantly stop fresh laundry from piling up once and for all

Most of us are familiar with that sinking feeling of seeing a heaped pile of laundry in the corner of a room. The cycle of doing laundry can sometimes feel relentless, so it pays to explore hacks that can help you with this essential chore. So, how do you keep laundry from piling up?

The secret? Swapping ‘laundry days’ for ‘completion days’. Professional organizer Cara Palmer says this laundry hack will help you tackle the whole chore in one go and stops those fresh piles of laundry from turning stale before they see the inside of your closet.

Here, Cara explains how to hack your ‘completion days’ to stop laundry doom piles when looking at how to do laundry; with the smart organizing tricks and laundry tips you need to stay on top of this irritating chore.

How to keep laundry from piling up

Cara Palmer, professional home organizer and founder of Organize Every Room, explains, ‘I strongly suggest people switch to scheduling 'completion days' rather than laundry days. In essence, don't start a load unless you have time in the day to complete the whole process, from washing to folding and putting items away.’

This laundry organization hack works because it tackles one of the main psychological reasons clutter builds at home, she explains. ‘Doing laundry involves multiple decision points – sort, wash, dry, fold, store – all of which can make the task feel endless, as if it lacks clear boundaries. By establishing clear start and end points to the laundry process, creating systems that work with your lifestyle rather than against it, and getting everything done in one ‘completion day’, you can more effectively prevent laundry doom piles.’

Much like the ‘no piles’ rule I have implemented in my own home, setting a completion day means you are less likely to go to bed with that doom pile lurking in the corner.

How to ace a completion day for laundry doom piles

This method will start to fall a little flat if you do not set yourself up for success with some smart organizing tricks to make laundry easier, Cara warns. Luckily, she has five smart home organizing tips to help make the process a little less daunting:

1. Implement the "10-minute fold" rule – Take 10 minutes immediately after the dryer stops to fold everything, even if you can't put items away yet. Just starting the process using something akin to the one-touch tidying rule can make the rest of your completion day flow a little more smoothly. It also helps tackle the bad laundry habit of leaving items screwed up, causing deep creases. In extreme cases, and for smaller households, you can even consider ditching the laundry basket and try the laundry heap hack to ‘force’ yourself to fold fresh laundry immediately.
2. Reduce your clothing inventory – This might seem like a drastic solution to some, however, fewer clothes mean less laundry and a greater urgency to complete cycles. It also reduces the risk of doing laundry every day, reducing how many ‘completion days’ you need to make space for in your calendar.
3. Create easily accessible storage – The easier it is to organize clothes, the more likely you are to put them away, rather than let them sit in laundry doom piles. Simplified solutions in bedrooms mean putting clothes away isn’t complicated. For example, using drawer dividers and organizers makes putting away clothes more satisfying and less time-consuming.
4. Establish family participation – Encouraging your family to declutter or tidy up can feel like an uphill battle, but it is a great way to power through a completion day, and can even make cleaning fun. I suggest setting up a system where each person is responsible for their laundry or specific tasks within the laundry cycle.
5. Avoid folding perfectionism – the rise of file-folding and the most aesthetic organizing tricks on social media can make folding your clothes and storing essentials feel like a competition. By focusing on creating functional systems over perfect pictures, you are more likely to put items away and avoid doom piles.

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FAQs

What do you do if you hate doing laundry?

If you are doing laundry, consider ways you can make the task fun, such as body doubling, having a video or a friend to work alongside to make the task less isolating. You can also use completion days to tackle the chore all on one day per week, ‘swallowing the frog’, so to speak, and getting it all over and done with a nice reward at the end.

Laundry can also feel difficult because there’s no immediate reward for completion, Cara points out. However, that doesn’t mean you cannot add one. Rewards are one of the best ways to get motivated to clean and hack your brain to make chores easier, even as an adult, helping you to power through your completion days with ease.