Personal machine, lots of small loads, roughly one a day
Reds (orange, browns)
Whites
Delicate Blacks (blues)
Heavy dark (socks, workout clothes)
Heavy light
Delicate lights (bras, shirts, blouses)
Sheets, usually a separate load because they’re so bulky
When I used a laundromat, I separated the same way, but I had a lot more clothes and did about three washes a week, all at the same time.
Depends on how badly I want things washed quickly.
If I’ve got loads of time:
Now, usually I don’t have that kind of time:
ETA: laundry is ‘free’ in my house, full-size washer & dryer, in a closable laundry room. Laundry basket is in the bedroom.
Same strategy I use when making a soufflé. Instead of eggs, I throw in laundry detergent packets, get the agitator going and then toss in everything except the cat.
We only have 3 medium loads per week, sheets get done at a different time. I do whites and light colors, then dark things and lastly delicates. My drier buzzes very loudly several times for the first two. Then gives a little beep once and shuts off for the delicates that I want to get out and onto hangers immediately.
I have a washer/dryer in my apartment.
Sheets in one load. One set at at time.
Coloured towels in one load. White towels in another load, with bleach. Both hot water.
Jeans/heavy pants separate. Cold water.
Light clothes, red/pink clothes, darks/blacks. All separate. Cold water.
Delicates separately with Woolite, hang dry or dry flat, as needed.
I don’t generally buy cheap clothes and I treat them well so they last.
At home
Socks and underwear get hot/hot and bleach
Bedding get hot/warm and no bleach
Designed tshirts (like amusement park shirts and some top clothes get warm/cold and color-safe bleach
Jeans, sweatshirts, sweaters and the rest get cold/cold
In the last two I will separate colors or put the odd red or orange with blacks. I have been surprised sometimes when an old favorite sweatshirt will suddenly bleed color after having not done so for ages.
Home.
Depends on how much I have to wash and how many loads I feel like doing.
If I need to wash towels, they get their own run through the machines.
Sometimes if I’m doing sheets they can go in with the towels, but usually I have enough towels that I can’t fit any more in and have to do the sheets alone.
Something like blankets or coats get washed on an as needed basis, basically only if something gets spilled on it, and as such always gets its own run.
Shirts usually go on their own as well, but they get hung up to dry, as the dryer is too harsh on them, IMO.
Everything else (pants, underwear, sock) just gets thrown in together. If it’s a small enough load, I will just combine this and shirts.
I don’t separate by color, that’s racist. Also I don’t have anything in a color that bleeds and I don’t have whites that need bleaching or stuff like that.
Overall, I usually have two, sometimes three loads, every week (optimally) to two weeks (if I’m lazy or have no time). This is just my stuff. Other people are usually washing stuff several times through out the week.
I use cold water, and very little detergent, that stuff goes a LONG way and you really don’t need anywhere near a capful. Lately I also add some borax into the wash to make even less detergent needed. That stuff is great.
Towels, underwear, blankets and sheets, broken up over multiple loads
Shirts and pants, separated by lights and darks
Kitchen towels
Delicates that can’t get thrown into the other loads
I do laundry at home. The kitchen towel load is done rarely. It’s so small and I feel a bit bad about turning the washer on for it.
Let’s see… we have a full sized washer and dryer at home, so of course we do our laundry there.
Anyway… baby and preschooler clothes get washed together, no sorting, on “Colors” temp on our washer- somewhere between “Warm” and “Cool”. (it has Hot, Warm, Colors, Cool, Cold, Tap Cold as options)
My wife’s clothes typically get thrown in all together and washed on “Colors”.
I do my own laundry, so whites go on the “Whites” cycle (hot), jeans go on “Jeans” (warm), colored t-shirts and polo type shirts go on “Colors”, and colored socks and underwear go in together on “Whites”, but with the water temp set to warm.
Towels get washed on “Whites”, and so do sheets.
I do laundry on the first floor of a two-story home. I used to use the laundrymat so having it in the house is a dream come true. I’ve moved on to dreaming of having it on the second floor. Four loads a week for me, usually all on Saturday:
First load – Warm, non-Tide pod – sheets, towels, underwear. It goes into the dryer while the
Second load – Warm, non-Tide pod – sleep/loungewear is getting washed.
It goes into the dryer while the
Third load – Cool, Tide pod or liquid – work pants (khakis) wash.
They get hung up to air dry while the
Fourth load – Cool, Woolite Dark – work shirts (black) wash.
They get hung up to air dry and the first and second loads either get put away or left in a pile in the bedroom.
Colors
Whites
Underwear and socks. My son has trouble wiping his bottom and his get pretty nasty so they are washed seperate so no smell gets on anything that cant stand a bad smell.
I do my laundry at home. Generally, I do mine and my wife does hers because she does not like my sorting method. It consists of:
I’m a simple guy. Her method is more complex and beyond my understanding.
There’s a three year old girl in the house, so we have:
At home. 2 adults, 2 dogs.
I use liquid detergent and those throw-in-the-dryer sheets as softener.
Towels and sheets – warm water, no bleach, softener every 2-3 loads
Whites – hot water, bleach if needed (too much bleach wears down fabric)
The rest is divided as thus:
Grays/Brights
Reds
Darks
Sometimes I’ll throw reds in with the darks if there aren’t many items.
All get cold water and fabric safe bleach.
I use the “moisture sensor” on my dryer as opposed to straight heat. Things take longer to dry, but they don’t shrink as much 
Single-family home, washer and dryer in the basement.
Cleaning lady does the sheets and towels every other week. I usually run the towels through at least once in between, twice if I have the energy. Those loads are towels only.
Other than the towels, I wash my clothes and my son’s, while my wife washes her stuff. On weekends, I have enough clothes for one load of jeans, one load with my perma-pressed shirts and other stuff compatible with them (my socks and pajamas, mostly), and one load of everything else. By sometime early in the week (Monday or Tuesday), enough laundry has accumulated between my son and me for another load or two of mixed stuff with no perma-pressed in it. If two loads, I’ll break out the jeans separately.
Washer and dryer in the basement. Load of white/light colored things, load of black/dark colored things, load of heavy stuff like jeans and towels that need to be dried for a million years. My laundry process is Darwinian. I’m willing to pull favorite sweaters out of the washer and let them air-dry, but beyond that, any daily wear item that does not survive this process dies and makes way for one that will. Socks and underwear go through the same thing.
Items like formal dresses get hand-washed or dry cleaned when I spill something on them, or when they’ve picked up too many odors to be wearable anymore. My coats are mostly acrylic that looks like wool, and go in the washer cold/cold. Winter scarves and hats are all acrylic. Pantyhose and bras get tossed in lingerie bags – not the same one, bra hooks are murder on tights – and washed with the corresponding color load, then air dried.
When I need to wash sheets I just stuff the blankets in there too, to make a full load. I don’t have a fancy duvet, just a triple armload of blankets, most of which I knit myself. Acrylic yarn is “drip dry”, only without the drip part. It’s about as absorbent as used motor oil, and comes out of the spin cycle only kind of vaguely damp.
Critter items like their cage cover and hammocks go into the washer hot/hot and are dried on high heat, even though they’re also acrylic and don’t need it. They’re a load of their own, because there’s already enough rat fur dusted across my wardrobe without the washer helping. I empty the lint trap on the dryer afterwards.
I hate laundry. Shared coin-op in the basement of my smallish apartment complex. I usually do laundry late at night on weekends so I don’t have to deal with conflict, but there have been exceptions (mostly to the conflict, not schedule). Laundry sorting and washing goes like this:
[ul]
[li]Dark t-shirts, socks and boxer shorts. Two week capacity, one load per week. Laundry basket.[/li][li]White undershirts, socks and dishtowels. Two week capacity, half load per week. Next to laundry basket, primary floor pile.[/li][li]Button-down shirts. Two week capacity, half load per week. Outside wall, secondary floor pile.[/li][li]Pants. Two week capacity, one load per week. Outside wall, tertiary floor pile.[/li][li]Bathroom towels. Four week capacity, quarter load per week. Outside wall, quaternary floor pile.[/li][li]Sheets. Four week capacity per use, quarter to half load per week. I have to split the flannels and heavy TC cotton into two loads. Bed to washer to bed or bed to washer to closet with an on-deck substitute. Occasional quinary floor pile if I change without washing. Quinary floor pile is the laundry equivalent to DEFCON 1 and it rarely happens.[/li][/ul]
When the system is running properly, I will wash almost all of my shit every two weeks, with towels and sheets as a wildcard once every other laundry night. Without wildcard loads, two washers, two dryers and no machine interlopers, that’s three trips to the basement for a total time with folding and hanging up of about four hours with downtime in between.
The washers cost $1 per load. I dry for one hour per load. The dryers cost 1 for 45 minutes and .25 per additional 15 minutes. $1.25 for the first load. Front-loading them with coins to keep them running between loads costs $1 for each subsequent load. Laundry is serious fucking business. I change loads with military precision. Total machine time for six loads of washing and drying costs $12.50 or 50 quarters.
Wildcard weeks add another hour and $2-4 or 8-16 quarters for a maximum of five hours and $16.50 or 66 quarters. Quarters are mostly obtained at the self-serve car wash or grocery store service desk.
When you hate doing laundry as much as I do, efficiency is the best you can do. Sometimes the system breaks down. It just becomes so tiresome. Like I’m doing LAUNDRY again every three days and I HATE doing laundry.
I’ve never consciously thought about the way I do my laundry to the detail I’ve laid out in this post, mostly for humor, but it is pretty accurate.