Works for Me Wednesday - Week #2 {In the Kitchen}

Keep dirty dishes out of your sink!

In my family, we dirty a lot of dishes in the morning. Even though I know I could do a lot of the prep work for my kids' lunches the night before, I typically put it off until the morning. (*See: procrastination.) So between making lunches, using little strainers and chopping boards for fruit/veggie prep, a knife for slicing/spreading, a spoon for scooping, etc., my husband typically making the kids' breakfast (usually eggs, toast, and/or oatmeal, my kids eating breakfast, my husband's morning tea, and my coffee, we end up with a sink full of dirty dishes. Since I always run the dishwasher full of dinner dishes overnight, the dishwasher needs to be unloaded in order to put the dirty dishes in there. (Yes, I'm stating the obvious here.) But no one actually feels like unloading it in the morning so everyone just piles their dishes in the sink for mom (that's me) to take care of later.

So I've come up with a simple solution that seems to make this task a lot less annoying  daunting. While I'm waiting for my coffee to brew, I fill an empty dishpan with hot soapy water and set it next to the sink. ALL dirty dishes must go here. That way, the sink is empty (and still CLEAN from the night before!), and since the dishes are soaking in hot soapy water, there's no dried egg or oatmeal stuck on any of them! (I'm still in the process of training my kids to RINSE and SOAK their dishes when they put them in the sink, and mornings are the worst. A quick rinse in the EMPTY sink and they're ready to go into the dishwasher, after I unload it. Boom. Done.

I know this may seem silly to some, and you might just think, "So unload the stupid dishwasher and be done with it." However, this is not what I'm thinking at 5:45 in the morning , after not getting enough sleep at night. (I have a child with a serious medical issue. I stay up late to make sure he's okay, and when I sleep, it's never sound. So it's not a matter of just going to bed earlier. Just to clarify.) ; )


So that's it! I hope you've enjoyed today's post for WFMW! I know this has made my life easier... well, at least my mornings, anyway. ;)

HINT: This tip also works great during dinner prep time. Just throw in your cooking utensils, measuring cups/spoons, peeler, etc. & things can soak while you eat. Then, maybe even throw in the dinner dishes!


Happy Wednesday!



This post is participating in the following linky parties:

Pin It

Tweet