I damp dry my good shirts/tees and the hang them to dry completely. Never any wrinkles. H’s shirts get dried and hung up immediately and never any wrinkles. I haven’t ironed anything in years.
I hang many things to dry straight out of the washing machine. This does require space, and time, but avoids most wrinkles. My button down shirts could benefit from ironing and if the boys have to wear their khakis somewhere ‘important’, then ironing is needed, but most things hang to dry and look great.
To me the most important thing is to go thru the mail every day and put any that I don’t need into recycling immediately. I pay my bills online and this includes everything but the bill itself… Outer envelope, inner envelope those get recycked immediately . Bills put on my desk. Magazines in one bin, coupons I’ll really use in another
Next is making sure all the dishes are in the dishwasher every night and put away every morning
I take shirts and pants out of the dryer and immediately hang to avoid wrinkles. I find that if I hang them to dry, they are stiff and more wrinkled. Interesting that some avoid wrinkles via hanging things up to dry.
My dryer with the wrinkle avoid cycle keeps things in good shape, as well as hanging everything. When hanging wet, things can be shaken, and straightened on the hanger.
I do not like the scent of fabric softener, and far prefer the smell of laundry hung outside. Maybe it is time to plant a bed of lavender for the ultimate in outdoor drying…
As Great Lakes mom, I have a dryer with wrinkle guard. It keeps tumbling clothes until the clothes are completely cool. If I take them out when it is doing the cool down or shortly after, they do not need ironing. Macy’s had awesome 100% cotton wrinkle-resistant sheets, so I bought 2 sets for each bed and use them. I also hang-dry a lot of clothes. Dryers are ultimate color destroyers, so hang drying also keeps the clothes looking newish longer.
Note that the OP said “NEED to do.” IMO, there are things I do that do not have to be done daily yet I have a habit of doing them daily, and then there are things that I cannot leave until tomorrow. Feeding the cats and cleaning their cat boxes are in the latter category… the rest does not have to be done daily, even running the dishwasher. 
Yes, dealing with living things is something that has to be done daily. Otherwise the living things complain a lot.
Any or all of the following: Buy clothes that don’t wrinkle, take stuff out of the dryer right away, and have lower standards of what is acceptable.
I rarely iron except for the most important occasions…then I’ll finally drag out the ironing board.
^My amswer exactly Claremont.
Dress shirts go to the cleaners – everything else that needs to look unwrinkled (khakis, short sleeve oxfords, polo shirts) get yanked out of the dryer while still hot and put on hangers.
S2 reports Downy wrinkle remover spray works reasonably well, too.
Yes to the Downy spray, but others here have reported that a spritz of plain water works as well. I haven’t tried it yet.
Yeah, nothing makes clothes really crisp except ironing. And that’s important enough to me that I iron my clothes. Also because I really prefer the nice fabrics; cottons, rayons, etc.
DH had an expression, body ironing. You know, when you put on something and body heat smoothes out light wrinkles. Doesn’t work with everything.
I don’t know where the iron is, either. Though I love an ironed top sheet, it’s D1’s bf who comes by to use it when he needs a neat shirt.
I tend not to like clothes that look crispy on me, although I do have the classic white fitted blouses that I pull out when I need to look professional and not artsy, but those are cleaned and pressed at the dry cleaner’s. I can’t imaging wearing stuff like that every day, it would make me sad. I live in stretchy things :D.
@VeryHappy lol about the living things being unhappy when you don’t tend to their needs! “Mom we are out of milk! How can you do that to us!?!”
Dishes are usually washed daily, but if the dishwasher is too full at the end of the day, I just rinse and stack whatever won’t fit. The trash is put out most nights, but sometimes I just tie off the bag and leave it in the garage until the next morning. Laundry used to be a daily chore, but no longer. I can’t think of anything other chores that I need to do daily.
We no longer have any pets, so that eliminates a big source of messes. I can vacuum once a week instead of daily without fearing that large fur balls might drift across a visitor’s view.
I have a clothes steamer for a French press. M dil sets it up for me and the outcome is excellent.
S2 used the Downy fabric dewrinkler – I throw in a damp towel with the wrinkly stuff. Takes out the deep creases.
I use a dryer with wet clothes, a water spritzer and the Downey fabric dewrinkler. They all work . But you need to be savy about which one works where and what is needed where.
It is an art on how to not use an iron. It takes practice and patience. I have been working on it for awhile. Good luck to those just starting.
Our iron is strictly used for crafts, and we haven’t had an ironing board in years. The dryer is our iron!
Some items sometimes need to be sprinkled with water and put back in the dryer for a few minutes, but that’s about it. Our dryer has a wrinkle out feature, but the dryer is relatively new, and that part hasn’t been hooked up yet. Neither H nor I are handy, and I guess it’s just not that important to us, so it just hasn’t been done yet. If putting the article back in the dryer doesn’t work, I have a handheld steamer that I use–or used to use; I gave it to D to take to college and have yet to purchase another for myself.
H uses hotel laundry services and dry cleaning for his dress shirts and pants kind of regularly, but he also does the dryer routine at home.
My parents iron a lot. I just don’t notice a difference in the outcome in looks or feel between our method and theirs, except maybe in men’s dress shirts, so I’ll go with the easier, less time consuming way. I’m more free-spirited than they are, so they might disagree, but that’s ok. To each his/her own.