Systems involving dishwashers

An everyday system, TM, is a simple, commonsense solution to an everyday problem, grounded by a pun or metaphor. Propose/discuss new systems here.
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reinhard
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Systems involving dishwashers

Post by reinhard » Fri Mar 31, 2006 2:47 pm

I grew up without a dishwasher, and used to be a dishwasher skeptic. I like doing dishes by hand, it's an opportunity to listen to audiobooks. But then I had a kid. And I don't like doing dishes *that* much.

Here are some minor things that I thought everyone did until I realized they didn't. They also don't have a names yet, so they're a mere techniques, not full blown everyday systems.

1. When loading utensils into the dish washers, put all the forks in one bin, the knives in another, spoons in another, etc. so they're easier to put away after. You have to handle them individually when putting them in anyway, so this saves you time taking them out without any extra cost.

2. Another thing we've found helpful is to run it once a day, after dinner, without exception, instead of constantly worrying, "is it full enough? ok, I'll run it now..." Now that we have a kid, it's almost always reasonably full, and there's always some befunked toy or high chair component we can throw in if there's room. This reduces ambiguity about whether the dishes are dirty or clean and reduces "you didn't run the dishwasher? there are no clean sippy cups!" style emergencies.

3. Lastly, I put sponges and and brushes and such in once a week to high-temperature defunk them. Maybe not as effective as frying them in the microwave, but that always made me nervous that they'd burst into flames or something.

Reinhard

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