Simplify Doing the Dishes

At my house we hate doing dishes. Doing laundry is considered slightly less painful. We have a dishwasher but because we almost never eat out and frequently have to make food from scratch we have LOTS of dishes and the dishwasher can't keep up. We've even seriously considered having two dishwashers.

The point of this instructable is how we, very easily, simplified the task of doing dishes in our house.

This would also work great for people that don't have a dishwasher.

Step 1 Examine Your Sink

Look in your dishes pit (aka sink) and look at what takes the longest to wash by hand. Pots and pans usually take up a lot of space but unless food is really stuck on, they wash up pretty quick. We would have a lot of silverware floating around in there to but we could easily process it all in one load in the dishwasher.

The thing that took the longest was the bowls, plates and cups. Plates and bowls can be pretty messy and they would build up during the day. We would have had to wash dishes three times a day (or more when you count dessert) to keep up. That was too much for us or was it?

Comments

[momma_faeyth]

As a mom of three and having a debilitating condition, my husband and I have been searching for an idea to lessen the pain of the dishes. This is awesome. Not only will this be wonderful for reducing pile-up, but my youngest has extreme OCD with his Aspergers and already insists on a certain plate, bowl, cup, fork, etc. I'm actually just now switching from plastic to glass however, I still need a divider plate for my son and have yet to find an alternative for that. I love all these ideas--choice of colors, etc. Thanks so much!!

[EmmettO]

Hey, great to hear that this could help out! We're still using the system but we've been falling off the wagon a bit in terms of not just tossing dishes in the sink and letting them sit. I'm the permanent dishwasher now and my son is the dryer. This was a compromise that I made because as much as I don't love doing dishes, I really can't stand laundry and it was a price I was willing to pay to never have to touch the laundry again. :)

[sbarnes10]

I've been thinking about doing something like this for probably over a year now... This was really helpful to me! I absolutely can not keep up with my dishes. We also eat almost exclusively at home (as well as pack lunches which require extra dish ware) and make most everything from scratch so it usually takes multiple pots and pans per meal, plus dishes from snacks.. it just seems endless.

I'm pretty good at keeping up with the laundry & toy cleanup because I have a system. Thank you very much for posting this and motivating me to have a better system in my kitchen! Honestly, it's really pretty disgusting most of the time and I just can't stand it.

[bbsassy]

Hahahahaha Brand new to Instructibles. This is hysterical. it is just washing up for goodness sake. I personally have two 'ball-bearing dishwashers' (my two sons) LOL

[EmmettO]

No, it's a suggestion on how to streamline the dishes. We've found it to be very useful and has enforced keeping up with the dishes for us. As has been said in the past, if you don't need it, don't use it.

[terribug]

One thing we do to limit the amount of water used is to take one of the cooking pots and put the utensils in the bottom. Run a small amount of hot, soapy water, then wash (but don't rinse) the dishes one at a time, placing them in the other side of the sink (or just outside of the pot, if you only have one big sink). Wait till all are soaped and clean to rinse them all at once. If you're keeping up with the dishes, this takes no time at all, and very little water.

[MTJimL]

Two thoughts: Unbreakable is good; plastic is bad. Unless you have access to something better than melamine, you'll discover it's not dishwasher safe. Second, rather than marking the plates with "permanent" Magic Marker, try buying from open stock. Give each person a choice(kids love to choose); that way they will bond with their personal plate because it's different from the rest, as are they.

And regarding the comment by "jodiwer" on the previous step: Envy is an ugly word, and to imply snidely that someone doesn't live in the real world because of a possibly higher income smacks of that unbecoming characteristic. But I'm sure "jodiwer" is a wonderful person and I misread the comment completely.

[rhaubejoi]

well said MTJiml. My former in-laws (whom I still dearly love) had 6 kids and their solution was everyone had a specific color for their dishes. red, yellow, green, blue, pink, purple. It seems the colors would be easier to tell at a glance instead of having to look at the bottom of a dish. Especially a filled glass of tea. I have a small family but it seems the dishes still pile up too quick since we don't have a dishwasher. Oh well, grandma did fine without one for all those years, so I suppose I'll live..lol

[bigjeff5]

When I was growing up my parents had two dishwashers:

Me and my older brother.

[EmmettO]

Different color dishes is also a perfectly acceptable methiod of acomplishing this.

[wobbler]

I wash up in a large stainless steel mixing bowl in the sink. It saves a huge amount of water. I also boil the water in a kettle rather than run off hot water (you only need a litre) and then add cold water to it to make up the rest and bring it down to a usable temperature. In case you're wondering why I don't just half heat a bigger amount of water, it uses the same energy in total, it's just easier to let it boil. Of course, I do this for small washing ups, which is what most of mine are.

[julesandflossy]

I couldn't think of anything worse than demeaning the dining experience by eating off plastic plates of foons or using plastic silverware. Ugh. When I start cooking, I fill the sink with hot soapy water, and wash as I go and leave in a draining tray. I have never had a dishwasher and never will as I think they are unhygenic and a waste of electricity, also I don't believe they work properly and use nasty chemicals. The feeling of hot soapy water is nice to me (I don't wear gloves either) and my daughter usually comes and dries the dishes with a fresh tea towel and we chat about our day. Actually it makes it easier if there is someone nice to dry the dishes as you wash, because then the tray doesn't get overly full. As for pots and pans, once I have served the dinner, I fill the pan with hot water and let it soak until straight after dinner when I wash it. I find washing the dishes in warm soapy water a relaxing experiencem and it brings my daughter and I closer together. Maybe a paradigm shift would help, but I know some people are too busy and this is not always possible. All the best. X

[Javin007]

I'm not sure what kind of Pollyanna world you live in, but where I come from if you're lucky, you MIGHT see a family plop down in front of the TV with TV trays and paper plates and plastic utensils. This is assuming they didn't just pick up a bucket of KFC.

If you're snooty enough that you think you need to verbalize that you can't "think of anything worse than demeaning the dining experience by" doing what is recommended in this instructable, then you *should* also be made aware that those of us raised to "demean" dinner were at least taught the "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" rule. (We were also taught when it was proper to break that rule, such as now.) I for one can think of a few things worse. Pedophilia... Rape... Murder... The "Amazing Horse" song... The "Double Rainbows" guy...

I'm glad that you're the rare flower that actually enjoys hand washing dishes, but as 99.9% of U.S. homes have a dishwasher in them, I think we can assume you're somewhere in the minority there.

I for one enjoyed this instructable, and found some great tips that I will personally use. As a complete side note, perhaps you should check here: http://www.landtechnik.uni-bonn.de/ifl_research/ifl_research_projects.php?sec=HT
and here:
http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/211/1/Dishwashers-vs-hand-washing.html

You'll find that actual REAL studies done on the subject have proven dishwashers to use less water, less soap, less overall energy, and be far more hygienic than hand washing.

And no, ending your post with: "All the best. X" does not negate the negative things you were saying and the little "Ugh" comments.

[vgmom]

Kudos to everything you said here Javis7. This postee really tried to put down a really great instructable. Not every inst. has to apply to everyone, and she was bringing up these good ideas to whomever wants to apply. TO EACH ITS OWN.

I try washing as i go along the cooking procedure so that when i finish, i only have the pots w/the cooked meal on them. If any leftovers, i transfer to plastic bowls and save for next meal & wash the pots then. Good inst. Emmett0! Don't let them bring u down!

[julesandflossy]

Wow, I'm sorry for you Javin007 that you took my reply so personally. I guess I am lucky that I can be in a kind of Pollyanna-ish state, here in New Zealand where a lot of people still have the time to wash the dishes by hand, while chatting to their children. I even grow my own food and cook from scratch. Occasionally on an occasion where we are coming together as a big group, at an end of year work function or school 'do' plastic plates or cutlery will be used for quick disposal, but to use it on a daily basis would be considered very tacky, wasteful, lazy and uneconomic. I agree the crimes you mentioned are much worse. I wonder if the root of those are that their parents did not have time to chat with/get to know/guide their children on a daily basis during simple activities such as dishwashing, or eating healthy foods together. I know that the industrialisation of food which creates a fast food plastic plate lifestyle manufactures food with strange unnatural ingredients, which is also a cause of obesity, depression and anger as is a general lack of time generally in the hunt for the mighty dollar, (causing the demand for the industrialised food in the first place?) I consider myself fortunate that I *do* have or choose to make time to live a simple life growing my own food and cleaning up after myself. Here in New Zealand this is standard, most of us even eschew clothes driers and take the time to hang our laundry out to dry. I guess you and I, Javin007, are literally worlds apart. Maybe I'm too old fashioned I don't know. But it is just the way I live. All the best X.

[EmmettO]

Since your reply was directly aimed at me I guess I should take it personally. Both of you are violating the "be nice" policy and I don't appreciate it. Apparently in all your superior upbringing you're no better than Javin007.

I also grow my own food and cook most things from scratch. I also regularly chat with my children. Stop insulting people.

I am not obese (or even fat) neither is my family and I don't hunt for the almighty dollar but I do have to survive and where I live we have property taxes and my parents weren't rich enough to buy me a house so I have a mortgage. And yes that does take up a good bit of time. I apologize for being poor I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.

Actually if I didn't have to cook most of my food from scratch, maybe I could spend waste more time washing fancy dishes. I even have them, but they won't hold up to the use that my family puts them through.

I may be tacky but I am not wasteful. If you actually read the instructable you would have known that we wash the plates and do not throw them away.

So other than your distain for plastic, your prejudice has proven 100% incorrect. Seeing that as being the case I imagine the rest would have to be incorrect. Simple logic really.

[julesandflossy]

Whoah! No insult was intended. Just putting my point of view across, and defending it. All the best X.

[Mr. Potato Head]

Definitely not a concern for me - it's what wive's are for. There's a reason they refer to these kind of chores as "women's work".

[gutzybroad]

I Have used the same system for a long time. The only diffrence is I went to walmart and Bought the same plate bowl and plastic cups in diffrent colors. Every one has there own color and you definatly know if someone is cheating. My kids are 12 and 15, so I've gone as far as giving everyone there own color towel also. I got tired of going to get a towel to find there were none in the closet. only to find them in kid's bed room. now towels get washed with there clothes and put in there closet on there shelves. if they leave them on there floor the use a dirty towel: however I always have a clean one.

[paravou]

I like the idea of a foon better than sporks as sporks can hurt the unwary user.

[Katie5757]

What a lost of fuss about tuppence ha'penny's worth of dishes. Takes less time to wash them than to discuss it.. Just do them!! Rinse them and swish with a dishbrush, so at least there isnt any dried on food, and you dont gug up the dishwater. I too dont have a dishwasher, takes wayyy too long, in my experience, and you still have to load and unload it..

[EmmettO]

And what would your suggestion be if they arn't getting done? If they're building up in the sink? This is a solution that worked for me. If you don't need a solution then you're correct, this instructable doesn't help you. Others have indicated that it looked like it could be helpful to them.

[mtk99]

This is interesting but the fact that you have a little amount of dishes that i can see I have a sink in my home that's most likely about 4x larger and we do dishes about twice a day I hate it but it still needs to be done taking about 4minutes plus sometimes to get it done.

[EmmettO]

Heh heh, yeah I took this picture on a good day.

[Pieter909]

To save water you better do the dishes 2 times a day, first time after lunch(breakfast, lunch and some cups of the night before)and the second time after dinner( teatime and dinner). I see there are a lot of people in your household, just make a scheme so everyone has to do the dishes a few times a week. There are 3 tasks: washing, drying and putting it back on the shelf's. This way you only use 2 sinks of hot water a day instead of everybody running the hot water tap while washing his own things. You've also got time to discuss the day and ask your kids how it was on school. When I was young we did it this way and it worked pretty well.

[TamarGirl]

I was wondering when someone would mention the wastefulness of the water due to many small lots of dishes being done over the day. I live alone; I rinse every dish I use and wash up about twice a week. Works for me!

[EmmettO]

Water use is not as important a consideration as hygean in this situation. Although I do try to conserve when possible I frankly doubt that this takes more water than filling the sink. I'd have to test that to know for sure.

[Shanjaq]

This step is by far the most effective. Wash what you use when you use it. The food can't get any easier to rinse off than while it's fresh. =P

[dgeer]

Hey I wrote an artyicle about how much I hated our dishwasher and only the other day it took me longer to unload it and then refill it than just washing up the dirties would have. My tip which I don't always follow is, soak cups and mugs and other stuff and load these into dishwasher. Hand wash soaked pots and pans! I too don't like cold food so would suggest the use of warmed serving dishes if you want to be really efficient and wash up the pots as you go. Serving dishes fit better in the dish washer and food tends not to stick as hard as it does to the pots and pans! My wife suggests buy plastic and through it all away! Better still eat less and then you use less plates dishes etc....

[rob2024]

good thinking Emmett use disposables - thats my rule - use everything and everything that can just be chucked after use with no washing. Besides disposable cups and plates I use the lids of biscuit tins or any lid as an oven dish (the bases are not always liquid proof) and just chuck them after use. Use the backs of large envelopes (not the print side) as chopping boards and dispose

[justcyn]

Yep, conserve and reuse dishes whenever possible...wash as you go and soak pots and pans while you are eating are the main tricks...for those without a dishwasher though there's also an art to using an ordinary dish drainer...don't waste time drying dishes....sort dirty dishes on the counter beside the sink if necessary...do flatware first and load them in the dish drainer's silverware cup....wash the breakable glasses (I once had to have stitches after cutting myself on a broken glass, unseen, in the soapy dishwater)...smaller items next (cereal bowls and such) go on the bottom of the dish drainer and then pile larger items on top of them in the dish drainer....they all nestle together to dry better this way...if you aren't opposed to the look of clean dishes in the dish drainer..use what you can during the day right out of the drainer...eventually the dish drainer has to be unloaded and the dishes put away in the cupboards though....but you have to do that with a dishwasher too. The wash as you go policy also applies to cooking prep dishes, while your stuff is baking in the oven or cooking on the stove ...wash the prep bowls and things like that while you wait......it's a lot less intimidating to just have to wash the eating dishes and a couple of pots and pans after eating and not have a huge mountian of prep dishes too.

[studiostud]

There really isn't an easy way to do pots and pans, but there are some good tips for make the jobs infinitely easier. It mainly comes down to the earlier tip of "wash as you go". That and the fact that one of your best dishwashing tools is a strong spray of hot water, especially if you have a spray attachment as part of your faucet. The worst part of cleaning pots and pans is when you have to clean them after whatever was in them has already dried. What I do is turn on the faucet as hot and strong as it can get and then use the spray attachment to "hose down" the pot/pan as soon as I'm done using it. Since I don't want my food to get cold though, I don't often clean them right away, just rinse and put on the counter next to the sink. Then, when it does come time to wash, the job will be much much easier. If you do have pots/pans with dried food, just fill them with hot water and let them sit for about an hour and they will be a piece of cake to clean.

[MTJimL]

Good comment. I would add a drop or two of liquid detergent to the soaking water. Also, make sure all dishes and pans get rinsed at the same time, saving the wasted energy of running the water until hot. And speaking of energy savings, automatic dish washers can be energy hogs. Try to find one that is Energy Star compliant. Their insulation and creative use of hot water will eventually more than pay for the price difference.

[MyMenagerie]

Another way to save energy is to allow the dishwasher to air dry and not heat dry the dishes.

[EmmettO]

Thanks! Another tip for if the food does become stuck on is to fill it with water and add dishwasher detergent especially Cascade Complete. That gets anything the water touches loose. My mother will boil water in a pan with burnt on food and it generally gets most of the nasty stuff off. Keep em' coming!

[chrwei]

be careful with dissolved dishwasher power, it's highly caustic and can even burn your skin if the concentration is high enough. That's why it works without scrubbing.

[endolith]

I tried to do this in college, putting lots of extra dishes in a cardboard box under the sink and taping it up real nice so it would be more work to open the box than to wash some dishes. :D My roommates were so pissed. But god, they would pile up dishes so high in the sink that the ones at the bottom would break.

Now I live alone and I only have 1 set of dishes. The rest are in a cabinet with crumbs and stuff, so I consider them "dirty". Since they would need washing anyway, it's easier to wash the ones that are already out.

[lintdrummer]

Would your dishwasher not take a full day's load? You must use an awful lot of crockery and cutlery! Anyway, this method probably saves you some money on the electricity bill and it's more practical all round. Ps. My name's Emmett and I'm an O'something too, go us!!!

[dreadengineer]

Rationing dishes also works with less-responsible college roommates. In my apartment, after constant problems with dirty dishes, we ended up emptying the cupboards of all dishes and silverware and each person had to keep their own. (I think living with 7 other guys is the quickest possible way to realize the flaws of communal property ownership.)

[JamesTB13]

Either you live in a house with 20 people, or you have a dishwasher the size of a microwave. If yuor dishwasher really can't keep up with the maount of dishes you make, get a better (or, if close with my previous comment) bigger dishwasher. Make food using less pots and pans. At my house, we eat out out maybe 3 times a month, MAYBE. The dishwasher does things wonderfully, and it's not that big. Also, as to step 2, if you use a glass for ten minutes and then throw it in the sink, STOP. 1: KEEP USING THE GLASS, just rinse it out if you, say, had milk and now want lemonade. JUST RINSE IT OUT. As for the plates and bowls, don't throw them in the sink, throw them IN THE DISHWASHER. Pots and pans, however, you mostly will have to wash by hand, we do, even though we have a pots and pans cycle, mashed potatoes will just NOT come off the pot. Well, you have made a good 'ible, for the non-dishwasher owners.