Christmas day is past, and I hope you had a good one with those you love.
And you probably ate. A lot. All of which is good. People who act all weight loss on Christmas are kind of creepy.
But eating means another issue that's inescapable: dirty dishes. And learning how to get dishes cleaned quickly can change your life.
We have a rule in our house: dishes don't get touched until the company is gone. Oh, I'm not saying we don't get the main course dishes out of the way when we're eating dessert. But it does mean that we don't start washing.
All of which means that at 10 or 11 or midnight or whenever they leave, there's a pile of dishes needing attention.
Now you can be like a lot of folks and go to bed, and leave the stuff until the next day. But that only means you've just deferred the problem until the next morning. And to me, there's nothing quite so depressing as waking up to a pile of dishes.
So, what to do? A certain type of person (you know who you are) stares at the pile in an almost contemplative manner, as if making a religious devotion. These people stare and ponder and dread what obviously Needs To Be Done.
Or you can just get the damn mess completed. I'm a fan of the second approach.
Let me start out by saying that I use the dishwasher like it's my job. I grew up in a family that didn't have one, and had the idea that a dishwasher was a silly thing, something like owning a 1970s pressure cooker or a fondue pot.
Wrong.
The first house I lived in as a married adult had one and I learned to use it well in less than a week.
There are several bad approaches to the dishwasher. The first is to treat it as though it's incapable of doing its job. Some carefully wash dishes before putting them into the dishwasher and the result is that the stuff you're putting in is at least 95% clean. I'm different. I treat this machine as though it's slave labor. I dump obvious stuff, like animal bones or uneaten mashed potatoes. Other than that, I just pop the dishes in. Again, the machine is your servant. Expect it to do what it's supposed to do.
Another problem is treating the dishes like they're in a bad version of 2020 social distancing. Me, I cram them in. If there's even the slightest space between two plates, I assume it will get clean. And at least 98% of the time, they do. And while not everything can go in a dishwasher, most stuff can. We have nothing that Marie Antoinette ate off of, so while I don't want to damage something, I don't worry too much.
And I do it fast. It's a little weird but I sometimes play a game where i set an alarm for myself. Maybe 15 minutes to get everything done.
Which is kind of silly. And I often lose this little game but what it does is set a limit on the time to get things done. And things that have a time limit get done faster. Trust me on this.
Maybe you don't do the dishes in your house. Does this apply to you? You bet your sweet bippy it does. Because what I've said about dishes applies to a string of things that need to get done which at the same time almost no one does because they're enjoying it. Think doing the laundry, or vacuuming or packing for a trip. Things that almost every household has to have done on a regular basis. Things that if not done render life pretty unpleasant.
In summary, here's the general rules.
1. Get a task done as fast as you can.
2. Use the proper tools, and let those tools do their job.
3. Make a game of it.
Follow these rules, and you're guaranteed a happier life in 2022. You're welcome.