How to do your laundry

1. Sort your clothes
Sort the clothes by colors. Once you have a week or two weeks' worth of clothes, sort them as follows: whites, light colors, dark colors, and delicates.

Dark colors include garments such as jeans, dark socks, dark colored t-shirts, and dark-colored underwear.

Whites are, obviously, all-white clothes, but also white t-shirts with silk-screened images.

Light color garments is a good catch-all category. This includes striped white garments and pastel colors.

Delicates are items that would probably best be washed by hand or dry cleaned, such as sweaters, woolens, blouses or skirts, dress shirts or linens.

Don't wash anything that labeled "Dry Clean Only" in a washing machine. If you'd like to avoid dry-cleaning for financial and environmental reasons, check out some of the gentle detergents like Woolite, which is made for dry-clean item
2.Wash special clothes by hand
Wash reds or any new, colored garments by themselves for the first time. They can bleed and stain the other clothes in the same wash. Or you can simply dip them in almost-hot water in a sink to see if they bleed. If they don't, they're probably safe to wash with other garments.
3.Pre-treat stubborn stains
If there's an especially stubborn stain, pre-treat it. Rub a small amount of liquid detergent into the stain. Or use one of the many sprays or liquid stain treatments.

Wash the remaining clothes
Most washing machines have dials that turn clockwise only. Generally, push in the dial, turn to proper setting, and pull out to activate.

Put the soap in first. Each detergent is different, although you should generally use no more than a half a coffee cup of powdered detergent per full load, or a third of a coffee cup of liquid detergent. Too much detergent can cause overflow problems, or clump up in the folds of your clothes and not wash out properly. Read the directions on the box to determine how much detergent to use. Most manufacturers include a scoop for powdered detergents and a measured cap for liquid detergent
4.Dry your clothes
If you're cash-strapped, environmentally conscious or just want to minimize your time in Laundromats, dry your clothes on a clothesline or on a folding, wooden, clothes-drying rack. Both are available at hardware stores and will save you a lot of money over the long-term. Otherwise, head for the dryer.

For some reason, most dryer dials turn both ways--as opposed to most washing machines, which have dials that turn clockwise only. Generally, push the dryer dials in to turn to the setting, and pull them out to activate. There's often an extra button on the dryer which starts the process. If you open the door to check how well the clothes are being dried, hit the bottom again to start.

Important! Remove the lint from the lint trap before each load. A full lint trap sharply lowers the efficiency of your dryer and often results in very unhappy (read: damp) clothes.
Drying times depend on the effectiveness of the individual dryer. An older machine could take up to twice as long to dry the same set of clothes. Settings on the dryer are similar to the washer. Dryers also an additional setting whereby you can time your drying cycle. This is generally best done at 40 minutes for a full load to start. If you come back and the clothes need more time, try it 20 minutes at a time. If you dry your clothes for too long, they can shrink. It also wears and tears on them a bit, too.
Jeans and towels take the longest to dry. If faced with a large load, one option is to pull out the easily-dried items (underwear, etc.) when finished early in the load to allow more heat for the others.