Is folding laundry necessary?

[yorkville]

I was busy with work for couple of weeks, and ended up with pulling several loads of clean laundry out of dryer and left them on the couch. When I needed something to wear, I just looked for the item in the pile. That went on for a few weeks, and I realized that its not necessary to fold laundries. Now I just toss my clean laundry into dresser with some sorting (underwear, casual clothes, sport clothes). Of course, I still have iron my work dress shirts. Any thoughts?   

[Zikoris]

The only time I fold anything is when I travel. I purposely avoid buying things that wrinkle, so have no need to iron. I actually do have an iron, but only use it for sewing projects.

[bogart]

I fold somethings, mostly to be able to fit more into a drawer than I would be able to if I didn't.  Most of my pants I simply hang up by a belt loop on a hook (one not installed for that purpose, but works fine).  I'm working (in the sense of modest amounts of occasional brainstorming) on finding other ways to reduce the effort involved in putting away (and taking out) clothes.  I iron literally nothing, but I work in academia so the bar is pretty low.

[nobodyspecial]

It depends - take a look between our legs.
If the space contains a bunch of oddly misshapen appendices that look like they were designed by God's intern in a rush at 4:55 on a friday - then you don't need to fold clothes, or sort them by color, or care about what matched.

[yorkville]

Well, yes, I am a man. But I don't see having a well organised wardrobe closet is a prerequisite to become well dressed. I imagine its the same for a woman.

[jrhampt]

Is folding laundry necessary?  No.

[Chris22]

Well, if you want to live somewhere without laundry all over the couch, it has to go somewhere.  And if it has to go somewhere, that somewhere usually has a finite amount of space.  And in order to maximize that finite amount of space, folding helps.  Plus I don't want to dig through a pile to find a matching sock every morning. 

[MrsDinero]

No.  Folding laundry is not mandatory.  There are a lot of awesome wrinkle free fabrics out there.  If you have something that you find too wrinkled to wear, then keep a spray bottle of water next to the dryer, lightly spray the wrinkled item and toss in the dryer for 10-15 minutes before wearing it.

[Fishindude]

No it is not necessary, but this is one of those very basic tasks that should be done.  It takes very little effort to fold clothing, put good pants and shirts on hangars, then put them away in proper storage locations, right when you take them out of the dryer.   Wearing wrinkled clothing and having piles of laundry around the house reflects that you are lazy and don't care what others think.

Neatness and cleanliness are important traits / skills that can affect how far you go in life.

[seanmerron]

I'm a dude that wears simple cotton shirts and if I don't fold or hang up my shirts they are definitely wrinkled as hell all day long.

[nobodyspecial]

Neatness and cleanliness are important traits / skills that can affect how far you go in life.

Fortunately I'm a programmer.
So I have a pile of the same type of jeans and every couple of years I buy a box of two dozen identical black t-shirts online.
I wear them and put them into a big blue bag from Ikea. When it is full I wash them and put in big blue bag from Ikea #2.
I take one out of the second bag each day, wear it and put it into bag #1

 

[GrumpyPenguin]

Neatness and cleanliness are important traits / skills that can affect how far you go in life.

Fortunately I'm a programmer.
So I have a pile of the same type of jeans and every couple of years I buy a box of two dozen identical black t-shirts online.
I wear them and put them into a big blue bag from Ikea. When it is full I wash them and put in big blue bag from Ikea #2.
I take one out of the second bag each day, wear it and put it into bag #1

You're my hero; I do love efficiency!

[esq]

No it is not necessary, but this is one of those very basic tasks that should be done.  It takes very little effort to fold clothing, put good pants and shirts on hangars, then put them away in proper storage locations, right when you take them out of the dryer.   Wearing wrinkled clothing and having piles of laundry around the house reflects that you are lazy and don't care what others think.

Neatness and cleanliness are important traits / skills that can affect how far you go in life.

I like the way you think!  I finally got to the point in my life when I realized folding clothes and linens right out of the dryer takes way less time than dumping the whole load into baskets and making a huge nerve wracking project folding the clothes on the bed, where various children and animals would have to be threatened with death rather than destroy my folded piles.  (Either that or digging the clothes out of the baskets over the course of a week.)

[ketchup]

I don't fold any of my clothes, I just hang them all up in my closet.  Socks and underwear go on a separate shelf in my closet.

[bacchi]

Wearing wrinkled clothing and having piles of laundry around the house reflects that you are lazy and don't care what others think.

It's only an insult if the other person cares what you think. :)

[bobechs]

What are these 'matching socks' you speak of?

[jim555]

I fold otherwise shirts get wrinkles.  Dress shirts go on hangers.  Underwear and socks get neatly piled. 

[sis]

Necessary?  No.

I don't like having stuff all around though so I just fold/put away as soon as it is done drying.  If you put it away immediately there won't really be wrinkles so no need for ironing.  I couldn't fathom having my clothes all over the place - it would drive me nuts, but that's just me.

[2Birds1Stone]

I don't fold anything but pants.

I sort socks and underwear each has their own drawer, shirts I have on hangers, slacks on hangers. I fold jeans/shorts into a drawer...makes life much easier.

[Cranky]

If it doesn't bother you, and it doesn't bother the other people (if any) in your house, then of course it isn't necessary.

I don't think putting clothes away is a horrible time sucking chore, and I prefer the way it looks not to have laundry all over the couch, and laundry left out here is subject to unpleasantness from the cats. So I put it away. But i've known people who have 2 laundry baskets, one for clean and one for dirty, and only hang up stuff that would get really wrinkled in the basket.

Of course, I've also known people who have two dishwashers, one for clean dishes and one for dirty.

[Cottonswab]

It depends. 

[MrsDinero]

It depends.

+1

After working in IT for over 20 years....this has never changed :) 

[MrsPete]

Necessary as in food, water, and shelter necessary?  No. 

Necessary to live a well-organized, simple life?  Yes. 

Most of us want to look neat and clean, and folding your clothes before you put them away is a step in that direction; when you let things pile up, the things on the bottom especially look quite disreputable -- okay for underwear and nightgowns, not okay for work clothes.  Most of us have limited space in which to store our clothing, and things that're folded take less space -- and when your things are neatly folded and stacked it's easier to find your favorite team shirt before you go out to the game with friends.  Few of us want to sit on top of a pile of clothes while we're enjoying our evening TV. 

[Sibley]

What you do in your house is your business. What happens in mine is my business. In my house, clothing is folded and put away the same day it comes up from the basement (may sit in the basement drying for a while, that's fine).

[rocketpj]

We have kids, so there is always another load of laundry to wash.  We tend to get a big pile of clean laundry, then one or the other of us will get exasperated and spend an hour folding it all. 

That being said, I wear jeans/shorts (depending on season) and a cotton t-shirt basically all year round.  On cold (jeans) days I wear a pair of black cotton socks.  On warm days I wear either no socks or a pair of short white socks.  I have literally dozens of identical socks of each type.

So folding isn't strictly necessary for me, or our boys for that matter - who, as far as I can tell, pick the shirt and pants from the top of the drawer and a pair of random socks each day.

However, DW works in a management position in an office and must look good to be respected.  She is good at what she does, and quite reasonably wants people to think about her work, not her wrinkled shirt or whatever.  So she folds, irons and sorts her stuff on a regular basis.  In fairness, when I was an office drone I did the same, and when I do have to put on the shirt and tie (about twice/year) I do the same.

[meerkat]

I don't fold any of my clothes, I just hang them all up in my closet.  Socks and underwear go on a separate shelf in my closet.

This. Pajamas and work out clothes go into a drawer as well cause I don't care if they get wrinkled. Also, I try to have about 3489208 of the same sock so whatever two I grab will match.

Usually I lay out shirts and pants flat as soon as they come out of the dryer so they're still warm, then once all the laundry is done for the weekend I take all the non-hanging stuff back in the basket, put it away, and load up the basket with empty hangers before walking back to get the rest of the clothes. Put everything that's left on a hanger and put it up in chunks as much as possible - shove the existing shirts aside to leave a gap and hang all the newly cleaned shirts at once.

That said, the weekend's laundry is still 70% on the couch at the moment because I went to bed early. Tonight I'll deal with the hanging stuff after dinner.

[GizmoTX]

We sort into stacks by type of clothing (socks, underpants, etc.) & place into drawers. Jackets, shirts, pants, & dresses go on hangars. The only clothing that gets folded are undershirts & handkerchiefs (DH), because they fit better in the drawer & have fewer wrinkles. Towels get folded or rolled to save space on shelves.

We also presort dirty laundry into separate hampers by color, i.e. whites, colors, & stuff that needs special treatment. When a hamper is full, it's time to wash it, & colors don't bleed into whites. We started this when we were using apartment washers -- we could bring the multiple hampers to the laundry room at off hours & get the entire job done in an hour. When we finally had a washer & dryer of our own, doing one load at a time was an adjustment, but washing only when a hamper is full helps with timing & efficiency.

Kids can & should do their own laundry once they are teens, using their own hampers.

[naeshelle]

Do you mind ironing/steaming your clothes every morning? If so, then fold your laundry. If not, then don't bother.

I hang what can be hung (hanged?) and throw the rest in drawers. I've been ironing my clothes every morning since I was like 9, though, so it's a pretty built-in part of my morning routine. Although now that I'm a college student, I can do the slouchy, wrinkled clothes thing and so long as I'm wearing a collegiate tee and Jandals, no one says anything.

[MayDay]

We have 4 people sharing one tiny closet and 2 dressers (old farmhouse, no closets. So we fold to fit everything in. If we did the pile method for 4 people there would be laundry piles everywhere.

My basic rule is that everything should have a place. I don't really care where the place is, but I expect to be able to find my clean clothes in the (couch/basket/drawer) when I go to look for them.

Personally I prefer wrinkle free clothes, I prefer not to iron ever, and I don't fluff stuff in the dryer to de-wrinkle (energy use plus really it's more effort to hang a shirt than to fluff it?). So I fold  or hang and put away as I do the load of laundry, a pile never builds up.

[HipGnosis]

Fortunately I'm a programmer.
So I have a pile of the same type of jeans and every couple of years I buy a box of two dozen identical black t-shirts online.
I wear them and put them into a big blue bag from Ikea. When it is full I wash them and put in big blue bag from Ikea #2.
I take one out of the second bag each day, wear it and put it into bag #1

You're my hero; I do love efficiency!

If he's your hero, get ready to meet your superhero.
I have a first floor laundry room.  Same as my last two houses.  It's right next to the bathroom.
The laundry room has 3 cloths racks.  Two of which have been strengthened and extended with PVC pipes.
When I take cloths out of the dryer, I hang them on the racks (except jeans go in a pile).  Dollar store hangers work well for light shirts.
Clean socks and underwear go into hanging shoe holders that are on the room and closet door.
The floor has 4 piles of dirty cloths - lights, darks, underwear (actually a laundry basket) and jeans.
I undress in the laundry room and toss the cloths to the piles. 
I have enough underwear and socks to do a small load of laundry of just them.  All my socks are the same (I do have a few athletic socks, but seldom wear them).
I do 'rotate' some cloths in/out of my bedroom closet for summer/winter.  Light/heavy pants and shirts, long/short sleeve shirts.

'Efficiency' is simply laziness taken up a level.

[BFGirl]

No it is not necessary, but this is one of those very basic tasks that should be done.  It takes very little effort to fold clothing, put good pants and shirts on hangars, then put them away in proper storage locations, right when you take them out of the dryer.   Wearing wrinkled clothing and having piles of laundry around the house reflects that you are lazy and don't care what others think.

Neatness and cleanliness are important traits / skills that can affect how far you go in life.

I like the way you think!  I finally got to the point in my life when I realized folding clothes and linens right out of the dryer takes way less time than dumping the whole load into baskets and making a huge nerve wracking project folding the clothes on the bed, where various children and animals would have to be threatened with death rather than destroy my folded piles.  (Either that or digging the clothes out of the baskets over the course of a week.)

This ^^  I have found that it takes less time to fold/hang it and put it away than to dig through a huge pile to find what I want.  Plus it looks nicer to not have a pile of clothes laying around.  The unfortunate side effect of this is that my daughter is now able to find what she wants in my closet much more easily :(

[bogart]

Hmmm.  It's interesting to read about others' practices in these matters.

I don't sort clothes, beyond perhaps washing brights once or twice before throwing them in the mix.  Everything goes in together and gets washed on warm, anything that can't survive that treatment doesn't belong in my wardrobe.  We do own a drier, and use it when needed (a rare function of ill planning and somewhat more common function of dicey weather), but mostly hang stuff to dry.  Things that get hung on hangers to store (decent slacks, collared shirts, skirts, dresses), get hung to dry and moved from drying space to closet.  Others get hung to dry and then stored in drawers (folded as needed if space is tight, otherwise not) or on a flat space in my bedroom (top of a trunk used to store sweaters) reserved for that purpose. 

As for

It depends - take a look between our legs.
If the space contains a bunch of oddly misshapen appendices that look like they were designed by God's intern in a rush at 4:55 on a friday - then you don't need to fold clothes, or sort them by color, or care about what matched.

... well, I don't have said appendages, but please count me among those with little to no interest in folding, sorting, or matching.

[jrhampt]

Please note that not folding your clothes does not mean that you have to have it sitting around the house everywhere in piles. 

I don't fold anything, but I hang the few items that will wrinkle, and toss the rest in bins and drawers.

[LouLou]

Nope. And I have no between the legs appendages.

What I do have is a clothes steamer for when something is wrinkled.

[RWD]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peUyLXrgYZ0

[marty998]

Fold your damn laundry like normal civilised people. Honestly what is wrong with you lot :D

The world is going to hell in a laundry basket.

[GrumpyPenguin]

Fortunately I'm a programmer.
So I have a pile of the same type of jeans and every couple of years I buy a box of two dozen identical black t-shirts online.
I wear them and put them into a big blue bag from Ikea. When it is full I wash them and put in big blue bag from Ikea #2.
I take one out of the second bag each day, wear it and put it into bag #1

You're my hero; I do love efficiency!

If he's your hero, get ready to meet your superhero.
I have a first floor laundry room.  Same as my last two houses.  It's right next to the bathroom.
The laundry room has 3 cloths racks.  Two of which have been strengthened and extended with PVC pipes.
When I take cloths out of the dryer, I hang them on the racks (except jeans go in a pile).  Dollar store hangers work well for light shirts.
Clean socks and underwear go into hanging shoe holders that are on the room and closet door.
The floor has 4 piles of dirty cloths - lights, darks, underwear (actually a laundry basket) and jeans.
I undress in the laundry room and toss the cloths to the piles. 
I have enough underwear and socks to do a small load of laundry of just them.  All my socks are the same (I do have a few athletic socks, but seldom wear them).
I do 'rotate' some cloths in/out of my bedroom closet for summer/winter.  Light/heavy pants and shirts, long/short sleeve shirts.

'Efficiency' is simply laziness taken up a level.

This is pretty good... but I'm not sold on the whole 4 piles thing... Separating clothes?  Ehhhhh, I've been shoving all my laundry into the same load for years and everything has turned out alright ;).

[GrumpyPenguin]

Fold your damn laundry like normal civilised people. Honestly what is wrong with you lot :D

The world is going to hell in a laundry basket.

Well aren't we Mr. Fancy Pants with folded laundry!

Actually I'm a sham. I fold most my laundry. Except socks. I just kinda stack 'em.

[Zikoris]

For what it's worth, while I don't fold, I'm a bit beyond the heap system. I have baskets for socks and underwear, and hang most things.

Going Konmari on my closet really helped a lot. We honestly go through very little laundry - between the two of us we do 1-2 loads per week, 2 loads being if we're doing bedsheets.

[BTDretire]

I take hangers to the dryer, and pull shirts out just dry or slightly damp and hang them.
Next I start pulling out my pants and putting them on hangers just as the get dry.
Most everything else I let completly dry, pull it out into a basket and carry it to the couch.
I either watch TV or listen to an oldtime* radio program while I fold.
My wife' pants get folded in half and the shirts about the same, they need to fit on top
of the dresser ? Apparently she has no room in the drawers, and I don't see her use what
is in them. But hey, it is easy for me.
 I fold my socks, underwear and T shirts and put them in my drawer.

*Oldtime radio: Gunsmoke, The Six shooter, Phillip Marlowe, Dragnet,
Johnny Dollar and many others. Available on internet radio or internet stream.
 I find listening to a radio takes much more concentration than TV, you can
walk away from TV, come back and get right back into it, easy to loose the
storyline with radio shows. But, I guess the type of program matters.

[franklin w. dixon]

CAST AWAY THE PETTY UNDERPANTS OF LESSER MEN

DO WHAT THOU WILT SHALL BE THE WHOLE OF THE LAW

[bacchi]

Actually I'm a sham. I fold most my laundry. Except socks. I just kinda stack 'em.

People fold socks? Next you'll be telling me that people iron jeans.

[Cassie]

Many MMMer's are slobs:))  Even when I was young I wasn't that lazy.  I have to agree that in general but not always men tend to be worse at this then women.

[LouLou]

Many MMMer's are slobs:))  Even when I was young I wasn't that lazy.  I have to agree that in general but not always men tend to be worse at this then women.

You call it laziness.  I call it directing my energy toward more important tasks.

[Playing with Fire UK]

Many MMMer's are slobs nerds :))  Even when I was young I wasn't that lazy cool.  I have to agree that in general but not always men engineers tend to be worse at this then women muggles.

FTFY

[Cassie]

Too funny you guys:))

[marty998]

CAST AWAY THE PETTY UNDERPANTS OF LESSER MEN

DO WHAT THOU WILT SHALL BE THE WHOLE OF THE LAW

Are you high? ha

[Tjat]

I suppose throwing clean clothes in a pile and scavenging through it every time you need something is one option, but I don't see the point. It will take you more aggregate time to find your clothes if they aren't organized and you can't use you couch. And any hope of getting a significant other is probably shot. 

[KMMK]

I suppose throwing clean clothes in a pile and scavenging through it every time you need something is one option, but I don't see the point. It will take you more aggregate time to find your clothes if they aren't organized and you can't use you couch. And any hope of getting a significant other is probably shot.

My boyfriend keeps all his clean clothes in one laundry basket. He's super minimalist with clothes so it's easy for him to just grab what he needs. He pretty much wears the same thing all the time - just a different shirt. It was a positive, not a negative for me, as his SO.

[jrhampt]

I suppose throwing clean clothes in a pile and scavenging through it every time you need something is one option, but I don't see the point. It will take you more aggregate time to find your clothes if they aren't organized and you can't use you couch. And any hope of getting a significant other is probably shot.

Once again, not folding clothes does not necessarily = living in squalor with piles of laundry all over the place including your couch.  They can get thrown into containers of various sorts and stowed away in closets with no one being any the wiser.