Laundry symbols on clothes can seem cryptic and impossible to understand, often resulting in washing your laundry incorrectly. Luckily, RealSimple.com has created a new cheat sheet to help us decode what the symbols mean. The first thing you need to know is what the general symbols mean, like the bucket of water, which describes how to wash the piece. The square in the center refers to drying, with the iron telling you how to iron, while a triangle refers to bleaching. If you see a circle, it's instructing you to dry-clean the piece, and non-machine requirements are also illustrated with a square. Another useful laundry tip is to separate your hard-willed fabrics and your delicates instead of separating them by color. When drying your clothes, untangle the pieces first and put them into the dryer one by one as this allows them to be dried efficiently.