Like a lot of the best fresh starts, this one's a total psych-out; also, like many of the best ones, you won't believe how well it works until you actually try it for yourself.

1. Go to your laundry room.

2. Pick up your laundry hamper.

   (If you have more than one, or many piles of dirty clothes, do this

   to them one at a time.)

3. Place all the dirty clothes in a pile, somewhere out of sight.

4. Leave.

Is this the laundry equivalent of covering your ears and singing loudly? Not really. You'll still need clean clothes -- I'd recommend washing them at least once a year -- but, most importantly, you're drawing a line in the sand. You're saying, "Okay, starting THIS MINUTE I quit letting 'being behind' stop me from making good decisions now and going forward." Tomorrow morning, you arrive at a brand spanking new laundry hamper -- and the nightmare will be over.

---

UPDATE: ever since I posted this suggestion, I've been receiving scads, just scads of desperate pleas to go into more detail on how I got rid of my dirty laundry. Clearly, the problem of laundry overload is taking its toll on our time, productivity, and sanity, mainly because most of us lack a cohesive system for processing our laundry and converting it into clean, folded clothes.

Over the next few days, I'll post many tips on how YOU can finally begin to keep up with YOUR laundry. There's no "one way" to solve the laundry problem, but hopefully you can find something helpful in the tips that I share with you.

Having said that, I really believe there's a common set of errors and problems that many of us share -- including a handful of terrible habits that have been reinforced by the most popular social stereotypes, including the "no BO" rule.

I hope you'll find some ideas that help you get a handle on your laundry issues and improve your free time.

Drop me an e-mail if you have any questions -- my inbox is full of 'em.