Make things easier on yourself, and avoid turning white socks pink or blue, by teaching your family members to sort laundry as they use it. This way, you won’t have to take the extra time to sort clothing before washing it. You can line up four laundry baskets side by side in the laundry room, and have family members place the appropriate items in the appropriate basket as the items are used. Use one basket for whites, one for towels, one for bright colors and one for darks.
Instead of everyone just piling their towels and clothing up in the bathroom after a shower, have them get into the habit of taking their things to the laundry room and sorting them immediately.
If you don’t have a laundry room, you might want to purchase a divided hamper. There are many different styles available, including the popular canvas design with three separate sections. An inexpensive alternative is to purchase collapsible mesh bags.
For extra tight spaces, divide each laundry basket into two sections, so you’ll only need two baskets instead of four. If you have a tight space, you are obviously doing laundry often to keep down clutter and mess, so it shouldn’t be a problem to place divided baskets on top of the washer until you can get to them. They will be up and out of the way, but you’ll still be able to teach your family to keep things sorted.
Another option is to put a small hamper in each bedroom. When the hamper is full, have each person bring it to the laundry area and sort the clothing accordingly.
It also doesn’t hurt to teach older children how to wash their own clothes, since they will need to learn to do it themselves anyway before they go off to college. They will learn a valuable lesson and you’ll get a break on the amount of laundry you have to do, which creates a win-win situation.