Recently, I watched a YouTube video “I Tried Every Popular Cleaning Routine” by That Awkward Mom. In it, she reviewed many popular cleaning routines. One of them was FlyLady’s routine, which I first tried to follow to the letter and failed. Then I started trying to adapt the same routine to our family’s needs, and have only been partially successful.
I bought the FlyLady’s book, Sink Reflections, many years ago. I’ve decided to go through Sink Reflections again. I’m going to use it as a baseline to update my housekeeping routine. I do reserve the right to change some of the tasks to suit my family. After twelve years of experience, I’ve learned so much, and I’m eager to put that knowledge to work by creating a system that truly serves our family.
So let’s get started with FlyLady’s first BabyStep.
Habit 1: Shine Your Sink
Anyone familiar with the FlyLady system knows her first ‘baby step’ is to clear all the dirty dishes from the sink and polish it until it shines. The clean sink is the starting point of her system. I completely understand this. I’ve seen videos of hoarder households and households that are out of control. I can understand why starting at the kitchen sink (if you can get there) is a logical place to start.
It creates a workspace. It is like when you clean your desk before you start studying or working. Most people won’t take the time to sort through every paper on their desk if they need it cleared immediately. Normally, they will take all the stuff off their desk and put it in a box to sort later, so they can get started. The same is true of clearing your sink.
But after the first shining of the sink, we are asked to “Keep your sink clean and shiny”, as per FlyLady’s 11 Commandments, and this has always eluded me.
The one mistake I made was assuming “Shine Your Sink” on the before-bed routine meant that I needed to wash all the dishes and shine my sink before going to bed. I assumed it was implied that a person should be washing the dishes. But while reading Chapter 1 of her book, I read a sentence I had read 100 times before, and the dots suddenly connected in my brain.
I am not telling you to wash the dishes; all I want is for you to set the dirty dishes on the counter so you can get to the bottom of your sink.
I had an “Aha!” moment. A connection was made to an AI video I watched on YouTube, which referred to the kitchen as “the housewife’s workshop”.
The “Aha!” moment is that the point isn’t to wash all the dishes. The point is to keep my workspace (the kitchen sink) clean and ready for when I do wash the dishes. I don’t have to wash the dishes at night before bed. I just have to make sure the kitchen sink is ready for me to wash the dishes when I choose to do it. Even if that means I’m only going to wash the dishes the next morning.
So Habit 1 is actually “Keep your workspace clear and ready for work”, and in this case, the workspace is the Kitchen Sink.
Taking this view of the Kitchen Sink is mind-blowing for me, but it brings another question:
When do we wash the dishes?
Keeping up with the dishes is the most challenging aspect of housekeeping for me. I have always disliked doing the dishes. Due to home educating our children and running an office from our home, I have found that a family of five creates a lot of dishes throughout the day. The kitchen sink is the battleground of my daily life. Just as I finish, a stray coffee mug or breakfast bowl materialises, and I find myself needing to start all over again.
FlyLady speaks about a dishwasher and a dishpan as a place to keep dirty dishes. If you have a dishwasher that you run daily, it makes perfect sense to pop the dirty dishes in and start when it is full. The funny thing is, I found that our family makes dirty dishes faster than the dishwasher can clean them. The average cycle is 3 hours, and I need to run it 2 or 3 times a day to keep up.
Dishwashing liquid costs considerably less than dishwasher tablets. Therefore, I decided that until my new budget stabilises, I’m focusing on being as economical as possible. Maintaining a pristine home is a priority, but so is my budget. That is why the dishwasher is reserved for my day of rest.
Just this past weekend, I took a day of rest and didn’t wash any dishes for a whole day (and didn’t pack the dishwasher either). It took me two days to get all the dishes washed and the sink completely clear. Keep in mind that I had to do other things during the day, too. For example, helping my husband with his business, doing the laundry, teaching the children, and preparing meals. Many of these things added more dishes to be washed, stressing how important it is to keep up with them.
Based on our family routines and needs, washing the dishes needs to be done on a continuous basis. I’m thankful we have a double sink, so one side is my workspace (which I keep clean and shiny), and the other side serves as a dishpan and a collection zone for dishes.
I have two triggers to tell me it is time to wash dishes:
- When the second sink (dishpan) is full and risks overflowing into my workspace (the clear and shiny sink).
- When my family finishes eating a meal.
I’ve tried time-based triggers, e.g at 2:00 pm I wash dishes, but I’ve never been able to keep up with this. Now, I wash when one of the conditions above is met, and I have the time available to tackle it.
The Dishwashing loop
I see household tasks are never-ending loops. Like a butterfly lifecycle, washing dishes, doing laundry and cleaning house are all cycles or loops.
This is the dishwashing loop I developed, it assumes that you have already shined your sink to a point that it isn’t completely disgusting:
- Take all the dishes out of your kitchen sink (your workspace).
- Rinse your sink well and wipe it down if necessary.
- Fill the sink with hot, soapy water.
- Wash all cutlery and kitchen utensils.
- Wash all plates and lids.
- Wash all bowls.
- Let the water out, rinse your sink well, and add fresh soapy water.
- Wash all glasses, cups, and mugs.
- Wash the serving dishes, pans, baking trays and pots.
- On your last wash of the day: Empty the dish drying rack (by drying and packing away dishes) and wash it.
- Let out the water, rinse your sink well, and shine it for the next wash.
- On your last wash of the day: Put your dish towel in the laundry hamper and replace it with a clean one.
Obviously, use your discretion as to when to empty out the water and put clean water in the sink. I find that I often need to refresh the water at least twice. That is why I deviated from the old-fashioned home economics dishwashing rule of starting with cutlery and glasses. I also found that on a dish drying rack, it is more space-efficient to wash the plates and bowls before the glasses and mugs.
Routine & Habit building
There is one thing that comes later in FlyLady’s system, and that is the evening and morning routines. The details of setting up routines is going to be a separate post at some point in the future, but I will identify the tasks mentioned in this post that will be included in the routines and habit building:
Daily Habits
Complete the Kitchen Sink Loop at least once.
Evening Routine
- Prepare my sink to wash the next load of dishes (shine the sink!)
- Replace the dish towel with a clean one and put the dirty one in the wash.
But I still hate washing dishes
Yes I do! But this past week I’ve started a new habit. I have a small art easel. It is just the right size to fit a cell phone. I watch Long Form YouTube videos while washing dishes, which helps. Other times, I listen to show tunes and sing along with Oklahoma (or any number of others!)
The last thing I do, when I really have a stinking attitude, is to count my blessings with each item I need to wash. Thank you for running water. Thank you for having the resources to buy dish soap. Thank you for a warm house to live in. You get the picture.
While I don’t think washing dishes will ever become my favourite household chore, these tactics have improved my attitude towards the endless loop. And I hope that this blog post has helped you too!
