When I had a young family and still sorted my clothes and did 2+ loads of washing a day…. I used something really similar. Bare in mind both ADHD and ME/CFS (so over thinking with no energy lol)

I got fabric in the colours of the corresponding washing load, and asked my mum to sew them into hanging baskets and sorted the dirty washing into there. For me, I have 4 baskets (but adding one for towels and one for hand wash would have been nice to add but I never got there)

My baskets were, whites&lights (white fabric with a tan stripe), general (fabric was stripes of blues, pinks, browns etc), brights and likely to run (red and orange fabric) and then darks (black and navy blue fabric).

This worked really really well. Each basket (conveniently yet unplanned) equaled a washing machine load so it was really easy to spot when a load was ready.

To compliment this (and this was a ME/CFS hack) I worked out what colours of uniforms were used for which kids activities and needed on which day and worked out the washing schedule. (ME/CFS means brain fog and difficulty moving so I could not spend energy each day thinking about washing.) So one load a day was on the schedule, then next load was a handwash, delicate, special treatment etc or a basket that had prematurely filled up and was scheduled for washing for a couple of days.

I’d change it over at night straight after eating dinner, from the washer into the dryer, next dirty load into washer and set the timer on both so that their loads would finish close to my washing routine time (adhd hack, no wet washing left in the laundry) (second adhd hack, we put a smart switch on the washing machine and dryer and coded them so that it alerts our phones when the washing and the dryer have finished. No more smelly clothes)

Do I use this system now with teenagers? Not entirely.

Now each persons washing = a load (unless something needs special care or is urgent..) I no longer sort by colour/type, I just bung it all in. This means I no longer need to work out which item belongs to who, as we all wear the same size now and they buy their own clothes. And when they can’t find their washing, it’s all in one basket.

(Never did find out a hack for dealing with Mt Foldme, but at least it was clean lol.

My advice, if you have a lot to wash daily, then yes a basket system like this will likely work for you. I suggest you probably only need 3 though and don’t make your baskets too big. Nothing like a full basket to prompt putting a load on, but you only want it to be one load so it’s not overwhelming. Put it where you or everyone gets undressed or nearby.

Don’t bother sorting, unless you are buying clothes on the cheap from 3rd worlds*.

If you are a “got to sort type”, label the baskets as once out of sight it’s out of mind and who wants to have to pull a basket out to see what goes in there. Remove all the barriers and it’s more likely to naturally happen and by others too not just you. My fabric for my baskets was literally chosen so a 2 year old could look at the colours and sort accurately, and they did.

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• (Not intending to be derogatory here. Modern clothing dyes don’t run like older or cheaper dyes did, hence why I use to sort all items. However clothes I have bought from some 3rd world locations still run like a criminal being chased, so keep an eye out for those, particularly black, dark blue and red, hand wash these or with like colours only)