You Should Upgrade Your Laundry Hamper

You almost certainly have a hamper you use to collect your dirty clothes (right?). But still, your clothes end up on the floor. Even if you have all the storage and organizational tools you need, if they're not easy to use and/or provide serious benefits, you're just going to go the floor route. Upgrading your hamper to something more accessible or useful can be the push you need.

Upgraded laundry hampers

A hamper can be pretty much anything. I regularly send my laundry out with a service that comes to pick it up and brings it back to me, so my "hamper" is the branded bag they insist my clothes come in when they arrive to pick them up. For anything I'm not sending out, though, I have a hack: I put my dirty clothes directly into the wheeled cart I push to the laundromat. I do this because I know I am a lazy person. If I had to transfer the clothes from a different hamper into the wheeled cart, I would postpone it and they'd pile up. Streamlining the process works for me and it might work for you—but a cart like this does take up space. I store mine in my front entry closet.

Not everyone is a struggling urbanite, of course, so your laundry may well get done right inside your home. Lucky you! You can still use my wheeled-cart hack. In fact, you should. There's no reason to break your back carrying a big basket from room to room. You can get a simple plastic hamper with wheels for $23.98. But why stop there? I also recommend looking into hampers with sections or dividers—some of which come with wheels, too. You can use the sections however you want. They could be for lights and darks, clothes made of certain fabrics, clothes that need to be washed sooner than others, or clothes from different family members or housemates. There are a number of configurations out there, from two-section hampers to four-sectioned ones ($39.99). I really like this two-section one that hangs vertically ($59.99) because it has a small footprint that makes it easy to store. This wicker hamper with three sections is also nice, especially if you keep it in a more public room and need it to look a little classy:

And yes, all of those have wheels. Our goal here is to make laundry day easier, after all. You could also try a hamper with a built-in bag, however. The rigid exterior keeps it upright, so it's easy to get your clothes into, but the interior is lined with a bag that makes it easy to pull the laundry out, take it to the machine, and bring it back around the house to put away once it's folded.

Maybe your issue isn't ease of transportation, but storage space. In that case, try a hamper that hangs behind a door. It can easily fit into a closet, making use of the empty space between your hanging clothes and the door. There are some really inexpensive options here, too, so you can have one in multiple rooms. This fabric one is $11.99. You can also upgrade to a behind-the-door style with a higher capacity and additional pouches to store detergent or smaller items, like socks, for $23.99.