There's just something about removing visual clutter in the
kitchen that makes a job feel less overwhelming.
I'm Ronnie and you're listening to Clean With Me, the podcast
where I walk you through cleaning your house step by
step. When you clean along with this
show, you'll get more done in less time so you can spend the
rest of your day doing what matters most to you.
Thanks for joining me in today's episode.
I am going to give you a little pep talk while you wash your
dishes. Let's get right into the
episode. Maybe you have a pile of dirty
dishes in your sink, on your countertop, on the kitchen
table, on the coffee table, on your night stands, lurking in a
teenager's bedroom. I don't know.
But it's time to gather all of your dishes to the sink area.
I say the sink area because I don't like to put glasses and
mugs inside of the sink, and you may need to clean out your sink
before you begin if it's not already clean.
So it's time to gather up all of your dishes from around the
house. Or if you're not feeling
presentable yet, that's important too.
When you look good, you feel good.
So maybe you need to get dressed for the day and do your
minimums. Everybody's minimums are
different. For some it could be putting
their hair up, for others it could be styling their hair
down. I like to use some type of
product in a spray bottle on mornings when I took my shower
the night before. That way I can fix my hair and
not have bed head. I like to put on a little
makeup. I like to wear something that's
comfortable yet presentable, all before I start cleaning.
But I don't know what time of day you're listening to this.
You could be listening to this in the afternoon or evening
while you're either gathering up dishes or freshening up for the
day. I just wanted to say that I
realized doing dishes is not usually on the top of anyone's
list of favorite chores. A few of you might find it
therapeutic, and I do find it therapeutic, but I never feel
excited about starting on it. But sometimes once I'm doing
dishes, I get into the flow of it and kind of enjoy the
process. I like to do it in kind of a
systematic organized way where I get the difficult items soaking
first, make sure my sink is cleaned out, and then I start
pre rinsing and washing the easiest items.
If I come across something that has dried on food, that item's
going to soak until I've washed all the easy items 1st.
And this is true whether I'm using a dishwasher or not.
I realize some of you are exclusively hand washing but
what I do is I get any difficult items soaking and then I pre
rinse the easy small items meaning cups, glasses, mugs,
silverware, cooking spatulas which I strategically place in
the top rack along with the cups and bowls.
Silverware goes in the little compartments in the bottom and
then larger containers. Maybe a small skillet or my
glass, a small glass casserole dish.
Those are the types of things I put in the bottom.
And of course plates. Larger items like a large
skillet or a pasta pot. Those are items that I typically
hand wash. Oh, I do put my small sauce pans
into the dishwasher after pre rinsing them.
And when I talk about pre rinsing, I like to use a brush
on a handle. Sometimes I also grab a sponge
with an abrasive side, like a scrub daddy.
But if you look at the process as something that's going to be
therapeutic and something that you're going to do efficiently
in a certain order, that can make it feel a little bit less
daunting. Another thing I often do before
I start dishes is clear off my kitchen island and my kitchen
countertops. Because sometimes when I see a
lot of clutter in the kitchen, I feel like I have more dishes to
do than I actually do. I might only have a few dishes
to wash, but if I was gone for the evening last night,
hypothetically, and there's tons of clutter all over the island,
that can make me feel overwhelmed and make me feel
like I'm facing some kind of disaster even though I'm not.
Hopefully by now you're feeling presentable and you've gathered
up all of your dishes. Maybe you're already doing some
of the things I'm talking about, like getting the difficult items
soaking. Or maybe you need to put away
some clean dishes first. I know you might be tempted to
stack things on top of the already dry dishes in the drying
rack. Resist the urge.
Get those put away. I promise it's going to make the
process of hand washing a little easier.
Because if you're like me, even if you're using a dishwasher,
you're going to be hand washing some items either because they
don't fit in the dishwasher or it's more efficient to put
different things in the dishwasher and hand wash others.
In addition to emptying your drying rack, you might also need
to empty your dishwasher because maybe you're doing an empty
reload and run of the dishwasher.
I will confess that on some days when I'm working from home where
I've got podcasts to record and college work to do, I will just
quickly do an empty reload and run and then let someone else
clean the rest of the kitchen. Because a lot of times, getting
that dishwasher loaded is a major part of cleaning the
kitchen and that lightens the load for the next person.
Even though it only takes a few minutes, it kind of gets it down
to where there's maybe a pot in a pan soaking in the sink and
some clutter on the countertops. There's just something about
removing visual clutter in the kitchen that makes a job feel
less overwhelming. Whether that means clearing your
island and countertops, or doing that first empty reload and run
of the dishwasher, or maybe getting that first sink load
soaking. You've got to remove that visual
clutter and you know, find a way to thin it down quickly before
you start to feel discouraged. Or someone else does if if
you're working along with someone else.
Right now we have 4 adults living here, so that's why I'm
saying I might just do an empty reload and run and then, you
know, go work in my bedroom, office while someone else does
the rest. And often once I get that
dishwasher running, I get that other machine running, my
washing machine. In a large family, you've got to
have that washing machine and dryer working for you while
you're working on the rest of the housework.
If you know, you know. A lot of times I just need to
get the machines running. There's lots of bedding to wash,
towels to wash. My middle son is away at Marine
Boot camp. Say a prayer for him.
It's pretty grueling, but I do currently still have eight
people living in my house. So there's lots of dishes,
there's lots of laundry. And yes, each adult and each
teenager does their own laundry theoretically, but I still end
up washing a lot of the towels and bedding, especially because
the adults work more hours outside the home than I do.
Not my husband right now, but the adult kids.
So my husband is a huge help right now.
I wouldn't be able to do this without him.
There's just a lot of housework, but I I want to remind you that
your home is always going to look messy if you don't start
keeping up on dishes. I'm not saying this to guilt
you. I'm just saying that it's such
an important springboard task because having that task of
doing dishes looming can cause you to procrastinate.
It can also cost you money. And you may be thinking, you
know how so I cook everything from scratch.
That's why I have all these dirty dishes, I feel.
Yeah, but sometimes you end up eating out because you don't
want to do the dishes and you know, you over spend, spend on
restaurants and take out. That having been said, I am all
for doing take out or restaurant if you're behind on dishes,
because if you don't have the energy to get down to dish 0
before you eat your meal, I would say before you start your
meal. But sometimes it's OK to, to, to
wipe down all of your surfaces and have some dishes, you know,
soaking in the sink. Obviously you've got to have a,
a sanitary surface for, you know, cutting up and doing your
prep work and your stove top needs to be sanitary and you've
got to have pots and pans and knives and tools to work with.
But sometimes you, you know, you leave some things to soak or you
have an overflowing drying rack. And by cooking dinner, you add
to those dishes that you already have sitting in the sink.
I'm definitely in favor of doing take out.
The other day, my husband was kind of looking confused when I
mentioned going to Wendy's. And I'm like, I need to get
caught up on dishes. Like I just didn't feel like
doing dishes and then cooking dinner.
We had a lot going on that day and our teenagers were at camp,
so we weren't really responsible to feed anyone.
And sometimes ordering pizzas is is a great ketchup too, because
people can just eat their slice of pizza either on a paper plate
or a paper towel and not dirty anything else.
I'm not telling you not to do dishes, but definitely getting
paper plates can help you if you're in a season of life where
you're overwhelmed. You've just got a lot going on.
Let me give you a perfect example.
I am in my last year of college, which sounds crazy because I'm
no spring chicken, but I I just really want this degree and I
didn't really think this through.
But during the summer semester, it's broken up into too many
semesters. So even though you're taking
like two classes at a time, it's a full load because they're
eight week semesters instead of 16 week, if that makes sense.
So here here's what got me though.
Week seven and eight of the first mini semester is week 1
and two of the second mini semester.
So right now I'm in what they call the overlap, meaning I'm
taking AA full college load. So yeah, maybe that'll help
explain why I had a sink full of dishes and wanted to go to
Wendy's with my husband the other night.
And if you do struggle with dishes and if you can afford it,
you know, having one take out night a week or whatever can
kind of help serve as a catch up time.
But I encourage you to work on getting down to Dish 0 every
day. By the way, I got some comments
on YouTube where this listener was saying that, you know, she's
already got the basics down. She's not overwhelmed, you know
she does XYZ every day to maintain her home and she wanted
more deep cleaning episodes. Well, my recent bonus episode is
a deep cleaning episode. So be sure to subscribe to bonus
content if you want to go deeper with your cleaning.
But these episodes, these free episodes that are available to
everyone are oftentimes designed to just get you started and get
you motivated and help you do your minimums.
Because often when you get those minimums taken care of, like
your dishes, your countertops, your stove top, sweeping the
floor, you know, picking up your living room, Yeah, those are the
basics. Those are kind of surface level
chores. But getting those done and
creating habits where you're, you know, doing them regularly,
having some kind of a morning routine or afternoon routine or
evening routine or all of the the above.
When you change your habits and routines so that you're doing
these daily tasks regularly and not letting things like dishes
and laundry pile up, especially not dishes, you'll start to do
those deeper cleaning chores. You just will.
And when you listen to these episodes where I'm having you do
these very basic tasks like your dishes and, you know,
straightening up the countertop, wiping it down, you're going to
go deeper with your cleaning when you listen because you're
going to just stay in the kitchen while I talk.
You're going to finish the dishes while I'm still talking
about dishes. That's going to give you a sense
of accomplishment because you're going to realize you're ahead of
the game and you're going to start looking for more to do.
You're going to scrub those baseboards.
You're going to organize your cabinets and wipe down those
pantry shelves. You're going to finally clean
the hood above your oven or the inside of your oven.
But right now, you might be like me and kind of in a state of
overwhelm. By next Monday night at 10:00
PM, the overlap will be over and I'll be back to just taking two
classes at a time at an accelerated pace, but still only
two classes. Way easier to keep track of the
assignment. I mean, obviously on top of
that, I've got to keep track of things like soccer practice and
paying bills. It's just a huge mental load
right now. And unfortunately, sometimes the
busiest times are in our lives are times where we need to be
more frugal. And that can definitely be a
struggle because those are times where maybe we don't want to
order takeout or buy all disposable dishes.
And even if you have lots of paper plates, you you've got
things to wash in your kitchen. I promise you do if you cook at
all. But I also wanted to say that
procrastinating on dishes causes you to waste time, energy and
money because it's harder to wash dishes when you let stuff
dry on. No judgement here.
If you've got some dried on items and you're you're pre
soaking those while you wash the easy stuff.
And also with procrastination, often the task weighs on you
more mentally than you know, just taking care of it already.
We spend so much time, and this is human nature, but we spend so
much time worrying about things when it would actually be easier
to just do the thing, something that teenagers often do.
They'll say, I'm not going to have time to get this homework
done, and they'll keep saying that and I'm like, you could
have started on it by now. Instead of just talking about
it, why don't you just dive right in and see how much you
can get done? Instead, they want to worry
about it for a while. But as adults, we're often
guilty of the same thing, especially when it comes to
housework. We we don't have the piece that
a clean house brings. We sit around thinking about
what a mess our house is. Right now, I'm doing a lot of
delegating. Earlier I had to run to the
store to get an adapter that I needed to record my bonus
episode later because I'm going to do an episode where I'm
moving around while I record. So I basically gave everybody a
job to do and said I want this house cleaned by the time I get
back and I'm not going to be gone very long.
Definitely give your teenagers chores to do and start earlier
than that, but they they have time to do a lot, especially
during the summer. OK, I know not all of you are
moms of teenagers or you may be listening to this episode during
a different season, but if you've got teenagers and it's
summertime, you need to put them to work.
It's good for them. It's going to help them out
later in life anyway, and it's going to help your sanity.
Sometimes there's something about just leaving to where they
have the deadline of you getting back.
They might even be tracking you. You know, if, if, if you've got
like Life 360 or the find my app and maybe they're going to rush
and clean at the last minute, doesn't matter as long as they
get it done. I apologize if you hear my dog
barking in the background. I probably don't have time to
rerecord this or edit that out, so I'm keeping it.
But I encourage you when you're done eating or drinking, take
every dish to the sink and always rinse them thoroughly.
Make sure nothing's sticking to it.
And that's going to save you a lot of time at elbow grease
later. For example, you have chocolate
milk or a mocha, and you know there's just something about
milk or chocolate in the bottom of a glass or it just sticks and
dries on. But you could quickly rinse that
out with water and place that cup in the sink or next to the
sink, or better yet, directly into the dishwasher if that's
your system. That's going to save you having
to use extra dish soap and have to soak that item before you can
wash it during your next dishwashing session.
But anytime you're overwhelmed by something, if you break it
down into smaller parts and keep up on it, it's going to be more
manageable. And this is so true when it
comes to dishes, It's easier to keep up than to catch up.
But if you do have a dish with really stuck on food and maybe
you didn't get it soaking at the beginning of the episode, run
the water till it gets hot, put in a little dish soap and fill
that item up with hot water to let it soak.
And some people keep a glass or bowl of soapy water in the sink
or next to the sink to let dirty utensils soak until they get
around to washing them. If you dread scrubbing utensils
that have dried on food, that could be a system that could
help you. Basically, you can create small
habits that allow you to effortlessly kind of do your
dishes throughout the day without even thinking about it.
And if you have someone that you call on a regular basis on the
phone, definitely wash dishes while you're on the phone.
That can work wonders. Because washing dishes is one of
those mindless tasks, you don't have to put a lot of thought
into it. I know that it's never a good
idea for me to cook dinner while talking on the phone.
I end up messing something up. I end up putting cumin and chili
powder into meat that was for spaghetti.
Like I go into autopilot or something like I'm making Taco
meat for example, or I burn the bread or something like that.
But what I can do while I'm yapping on the phone is wash
dishes because it's something I can do just automatically.
You just keep scrubbing until everything comes off of it, and
then you rinse it. And if stuff's not coming off,
you fill it up with hot water and dish soap and let it soak.
And sometimes when I'm on a really interesting phone call, I
won't even really remember washing the dishes.
It's kind of like when you're driving, you pull into your
driveway and you're like, I hope I was driving carefully because
I don't even remember the trip home.
And of course, you were paying attention, but it feels like you
weren't. It feels like it just happened.
That's how it is sometimes. If you're doing dishes while
talking on the phone and hopefully listening to this show
has the same effect on you, that's the goal.
Leaving dirty dishes out overnight can attract pests.
Obviously, we all drop the ball sometimes and, you know, we're,
you know, leave the dishes overnight or whatever, it
happens. But that should be the
exception, not the rule. But if possible, put away your
clean dishes first thing in the morning, maybe while you're
making coffee or making breakfast, because that sets the
stage for doing dishes throughout the day.
Or if you're gone all day, doing them right after dinner.
Or maybe there's somebody in your family who can put away
clean dishes. I feel like people don't really
mind that task much. It's something that's easy to
delegate because they just don't want to wash the dishes.
But to me, putting away the clean dishes is more tedious
than actually washing the dishes.
So I like to delegate that task and nobody seems to mind it.
The only caveat is some people don't know where things go and
put them away wrong. So you've got to train your kids
on where things go. And the fewer dishes you dirty,
the fewer you have to clean. So consider making one pot
meals, cleaning as you go. You know the drill.
If you use a slow cooker and you're always that's a crock pot
and you're always, you know, having to perpetually soak it,
consider using a slow cooker liner.
If you don't know what that is, Google it.
Another thing you can do is make one pot meals or sheet pan
dinners. I have a giant cookie sheet that
takes up almost the entire space of the oven.
You know, I grease that up and put different things on it.
For example, if I'm heating up frozen chicken tenders or
whatever, half the cookie sheet can be those and then the other
side can be tater tots or fries. That's obviously one of our
easier dinners that we make, but there are other examples of
sheet pan dinners that you can make completely from scratch.
So that's another thing to look into.
And if you put parchment paper on the cookie sheet, that can
make it much easier to clean. Do it when you're baking
cookies, too. I hope you got your dishes done
during this episode. Special special thanks to my
financial supporters who support the show either on Patreon,
Apple Podcasts, or some other way.
I'll be making another bonus episode soon, but even just
listening to these free episodes helps me.
Thank you so much for listening and as always, happy cleaning.
I'll talk to you in the next episode.