Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to run the dishwasher every night. Doing so
Speaker 1: will keep dishes from piling up, and we'll make your
Speaker 1: kitchen routines far more orderly. So you may think this
Speaker 1: is a weird tip coming from me, since I often
Speaker 1: questioned and whether various household chores truly need to be done,
Speaker 1: or at least whether they need to be done with
Speaker 1: the frequency that Martha Stewart might recommend. I rarely make
Speaker 1: my bed. I don't require my kids to make their
Speaker 1: beds either. I don't fold my gym clothes or pajamas,
Speaker 1: because why would I. They don't wrinkle, and it wouldn't
Speaker 1: particularly matter if they did. But I am pretty much
Speaker 1: a fundamentalist when it comes to running the dishwasher every
Speaker 1: night and unloading it first thing every morning. You should
Speaker 1: do this if you have a big household like mine,
Speaker 1: and you should also do this if yours is a
Speaker 1: much smaller household. Here's why it pays to run the
Speaker 1: dishwasher every night, even if it is not completely jammed full.
Speaker 1: If you start every day with an empty dishwasher. There
Speaker 1: is no reason for dirty dishes to end up in
Speaker 1: the sink or on the counter. Every dish can go
Speaker 1: straight into the dishwasher. When the dishwasher is always available
Speaker 1: for dirty dishes, you can set a clear expectation that
Speaker 1: everyone puts their dirty dishes into the dishwasher immediately after meals,
Speaker 1: after snacks, whatever. When everyone knows exactly what happens with dishes,
Speaker 1: you will avoid dish pile ups because the dishes will
Speaker 1: go into the dishwasher throughout the day. There won't be
Speaker 1: a gross backlog after dinner, because the worst situation is
Speaker 1: if you have a full, dirty dishwasher and dishes stacked up,
Speaker 1: then you have to leave all the dirty dishes sitting
Speaker 1: there while the dishwasher runs. Then you have to empty
Speaker 1: in it, and then you have to fill it again.
Speaker 1: Someone will have to come back into the kitchen hours
Speaker 1: later to deal with it, or you start the morning
Speaker 1: with a pile of dirty dishes from the night before,
Speaker 1: and this probably does not improve anyone's morning mood. Having
Speaker 1: a clear dishwasher routine also lets you avoid dish dilemmas.
Speaker 1: You will never ask yourself, should we run the dishwasher
Speaker 1: tonight or after breakfast tomorrow. The answer is to run
Speaker 1: it tonight. You start the day with clean dishes, which
Speaker 1: can then be put away, and you free up bandwidth
Speaker 1: for contemplating far more interesting questions. I think there are
Speaker 1: only a few exceptions to this rule of running the
Speaker 1: dishwasher every night, and these are rare. The first exception
Speaker 1: is if your household fills up the dishwasher well before
Speaker 1: the end of the day. If that is the case,
Speaker 1: then you should run it as soon as it is full,
Speaker 1: perhaps right after lunch, and then empty it as soon
Speaker 1: as the cycle is done. Then you can run it
Speaker 1: before bedtime, just as a one time a day household would,
Speaker 1: and empty it again in the morning. The other exception
Speaker 1: is that if you are a household of say one person,
Speaker 1: and you can consistently fit two days of dishes into
Speaker 1: the dishwasher, then I suppose it is okay to run
Speaker 1: the dishwasher every other night. But if even once or
Speaker 1: twice a week or so you can't fit all of
Speaker 1: the second day's dishes into the dishwasher, then it's time
Speaker 1: to start running it nightly. This will save you any
Speaker 1: pile ups of dirty dishes. If you are doubtful that
Speaker 1: running the dishwasher every night is going to work for you.
Speaker 1: Maybe just try it for a couple of weeks. If
Speaker 1: it doesn't work, you can return to whatever you are doing.
Speaker 1: But if it does work, you might find that dishes
Speaker 1: feel far more doable. Are there any household routines you
Speaker 1: stand by like I stand by running the dishwasher every night?
Speaker 1: You can let me know about them at Laura at
Speaker 1: Laura vandercam dot com. You can also let me know
Speaker 1: if you disagree with me on running the dishwasher every night.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear why and what you do instead.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the moost of our time. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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