Putting clothes away can be a hassle, but recently, professional home organizers have begun to advocate an interesting approach to putting clothing away. Instead of separating your socks, slacks, and shirts into neat little piles, they advise assembling outfits and then storing entire outfits on hangers or in your drawers. This small step can add ease to your mornings, because you no longer have to look for the skirt that goes with a particular shirt. This approach is also very helpful for children, because sometimes assembling outfits that actually match can be a challenge for them. But if you assemble outfits for them and place similar items together in their drawers, your children will be able to feel independent when they “pick” their own outfit, without actually exercising the kind of independence that will make you cringe when they come out of their rooms.

Like every room in the house, the laundry area is full of challenges, but these challenges can become opportunities. As you become more attuned to bringing order, harmony, and functionality to this part of your life, you might find that the dread associated with doing laundry will decrease. Victoria Moran's book Shelter for the Spirit says that we often dislike monotonous tasks such as cleaning or laundry simply because we feel that they are mindless and perhaps “beneath us.” But these concrete tasks are a very real way to care for those who surround us.

After you have rearranged and decorated your laundry area to make it more efficient and appealing, you might find the groans come less often.