How to Make Hand-Washing Dishes Seem Effortless

For some people, there's nothing more depressing looking than a sink loaded up with dirty dishes.  Some don't mind dealing with the depressing sink-load of dirty dishes; but for some, the load is so unpleasant-looking and so disorganized looking it can be tempting to procrastinate.  When dirty dishes are involved procrastinating is never a good idea.  (Many an apartment-dwelling college student has seen for himself the "horrors" of procrastinating when it comes to doing the dishes.)

Non-dish-washing-inclined college students aside, sometimes it's a busy Mom, an exhausted Dad, someone who is elderly or ill,  or even someone with depression who finds an overwhelming load of dishes too much to deal with.  Sometimes it's the sauces (and other stuff) left on dishes that make the job seem particularly nasty.  Sometimes it may be that the dishes have been "all thrown" into the sink in a big, unpleasant, mess; and dealing with them just seems a tad mind-boggling.

Maybe you have no dishwasher.  Maybe your dishwasher is broken.  Maybe you just don't want to run yours.  For whatever reason you're faced with dirty dishes (sometimes several times a day),  you may be among those who despise the chore of washing dishes by hand.  

A few tricks can help make washing dishes by hand seem effortless.  The main idea here is to break the job down into "phases".  Phase 1 is "at the very least" scraping and rinsing everything.  Phase 2 would be "just" soaping and scrubbing everything.  Phase 3 would be "simply" rinsing the soap off everything, drying, and putting away (or in a drying rack).  How much time you leave between completing one phase and going on to the other is up to you.  If you're feeling energetic you can do them all at once.  If you're tired, it can help to complete the broken down steps one or two at a time, doing something else you need to do, and then returning to finish.

Besides breaking down the steps, breaking down the "category" of dishes and dealing only with one category at a time can further simplify a sometimes otherwise overwhelming job.

Here's "The Phases" Go:

It may seem like this should go without saying; but first, scrape each dish before putting it in the sink.  After scraping (and before putting it into the sink) give each dish a quick rinse.  If the rinsing left the plates mostly "clean" (as opposed to having anything that sticks to them and needs soaking), stack the plates in the sink.  Squirt some detergent onto the top plate, run hot water into it, and place flatware (after rinsing quickly) into that water.  If the plates have stubborn food left after rinsing,  put a piece of flatware between each; so when you run the water onto the stack it will settle between the stacked plates (while still soaking each piece of flatware).

If you have bowls; depending on how much sink space you have, you can either do the same with bowls that you've done with plates, or else rinse the bowls,  add soapy and hot water, and let them sit on the counter until you're ready for them.   A bowl filled with hot, soapy, water makes a good place to soak any flatware or other utensils too.

Rinse pots or pans immediately after emptying them.  Either wash each immediately or fill with hot, soapy, water and let sit on the stove or counter.

Dump any contents from cups or glasses.  Give each a quick rinse; fill each with hot, soapy, water and place in the sink.

At this point, you have the "yuckiest" part of the job done, the dishes have had a chance to soak for a short time, and the job doesn't look so overwhelming because the dishes are "prepped" and neatly placed either in the sink or near it.   If you decide to leave them for a little while there's no food getting dried on.  Instead, the water that's in them, or that flatware is in, is making the washing job easier - not harder.

From here, you can either soap up each piece or one "category" (i.e., just the cups, just the flatware, etc.) at a time; and return it to the sink to wait for rinsing.  If you break up the job by washing only, say, the flatware; and coming back a little later to do the plates, it makes the job seem like far less of a chore.

If  you prefer to just soap and rinse them all at once at this point, at least you're not dealing with a disorganized, unrinsed, sink full of dirty dishes.  Breaking the job up by washing one group at a time, rinsing immediately, and drying can turn washing dishes from a several-minute affair into several very brief steps (with the job looking less and less overwhelming as each group of dishes is taken care of).

Either way, it doesn't take long to soap up and wash a dish once it has been scraped, rinsed and soaked in water for a short time.  If you feel like it, you can always "soap now, rinse later" (but make sure water is in them if that's what you decide to do).

If, for some reason, even the above approach seems overwhelming (maybe you're exhausted or busy with something else), here's yet another approach that will eventually get the job done without your feeling the pain too much:

Just wash one item at a time (or as many as you feel like washing) and then go do something else, whether that's other work or resting after the big dinner.  Every time you go back into the kitchen make it a point to wash "just one" or "just a couple".   Psychologically, it can feel better to know you're just going to wash two cups or one bowl.  Using this approach, it doesn't take long before the overwhelming load looks a little more manageable; and there's a good chance you'll just finish up what's left after awhile because it will have been reduce to a much more manageable-looking load.

If it turns out you do all the dishes except for the flatware, which you've left soaking in a bowl of soapy water, that's usually a quick and easy enough job to deal with a few hours later.