I finished our tax return yesterday and I only have left extensions for 1 of my clients to prepare. I would say I finished record early, but my practice has gotten so small, that it is easy to be finished earlier. Have you finished your tax return? If not file for an extension of time to file, but make sure you have paid enough to cover the amount of your taxes, as it is not an extension of time to pay. Oh, and this year the Federal returns and many, if not all, state returns are not due until April 18 - two states not until April 19! Okay, I know, enough with taxes already.
Now, on to today’s subject. Keeping up with what you are doing. I am a major procrastinator. I know many other people with organizing or clutter problems are also procrastinators. I try to keep up with what I am doing and clean up from what I am doing right after I do it. I am on several Yahoo groups about organizing and someone on one of the groups was talking about having to wash the dishes - apparently there are stacks of dirty dishes. It reminded me of a children’s book when I was young - The Man Who Did Not Wash His Dishes. It is, of course about a man who does not wash his dishes as he uses them and by the end of the book he is using soap dishes to eat out of and ends up piling all his dishes on his truck and leaving them out in the rain. (Obviously the book was enough of an explanation of why one needs to do their dishes on a regular basis that some 55 years later I still remember it.)
Our dishwasher died several years ago (the machine, not a person). I went out looking for a new one. I am a cheap person and looked at dishwashers towards the bottom of the middle of the range of dishwashers. I was not seeing ones that did what I wanted them to do. Finally I saw it - a dishwasher with tines which looked far enough apart for my ceramic dishes, a timer to start it, the silverware basket was in sections so I did not have to use the entire basket and waste space for a few pieces of silverware and the tines folded down for putting in pots. Even better ,when I pulled the bottom rack out it did not fall off the track and need to be picked up and put back in place (there is major company highly recommended and when we looked at their dishwashers the bottom rack did not stay on the track and had to be picked up and put back on - try that with it loaded with dishes and pots!) Then I saw the problem with my dream dishwasher - it was almost twice the price of the others. I was not in a rush to buy one and we kept looking. I had just about decided to spend the extra money for the one I liked and then I checked reviews - it came in dead last on one major reviewer! So now I was really confused. I read further online and found out that there is a problem with the dishwashers being made and they do not clean and do not dry. So over my husband’s protests (imagine a husband who wants his wife to spend money - that’s how cheap I am) I decided I did not need to replace the dishwasher. After all it is not a refrigerator or a stove, I can wash the dishes by hand. He protested this idea with the comment - “Wash them every day? You can’t do that.” I reminded him that the first 9 years we were married and living in an apartment I did that. He swore we had a dishwasher in the apartment until I asked where it was and he realized we had not had one.
So now I wash the dishes (and pots and pans, and bowls and glasses and tablewear and cooking utensils and serving pieces) by hand. I figured out it takes me about the same time to wash them and put them in a rack to dry as it did to load the dishwasher. When I started washing them by hand I used a dish rack next to the sink to let them dry. After we had mice I started using the dead dishwasher as a drying rack as everything is safely inside and unexposed while drying.
So I suggested to the person on Yahoo who was having a problem with her dishes that it might be easier to wash the dishes after each time they were used. I explained that after we have lunch I wash the 2 plates, 2 drinking glasses, and (generally) 2 knives and a spoon from lunch. This takes perhaps 5 minutes and then we are free to do whatever we need to do in the afternoon and the dishes are finished with.
After dinner we watch TV in the kitchen (well, we watch it during dinner also as we eat on the late side, around 8 pm). I read the newspaper while the TV is on and when I am done with the newspaper I wash the dishes. Pots, pans (my major pan for cooking is a cast iron skillet - it has to be washed by hand anyway), silverware, dinner dishes, soup bowls and plates, salad bowl, sometimes a gravy boat or small pitcher or a serving bowl or platter. Notice I did not wash the drinking glasses this time. We use them during the evening and for late night snack, so I leave them on the table. This takes about 20 minutes and all is done with.
Later in the evening we have our late night snack. We go to bed late and wake late, so lunch is our first meal of the day and this is our third meal of the day and substitutes for breakfast. When we are done and ready to go up to bed, I wash the glasses, cereal bowls (I told you it was a substitute for breakfast), silverware and anything else we have used. Again, it takes maybe 10 minutes to wash up. When we get up the next day I open the dishwasher “drying rack” and all is clean, dry and ready to go.
When I think about the idea of the dishwasher running for a couple of hours and using electricity, even if the new ones do use less water and electricity (which is why they apparently have problems washing and drying properly), hand washing seems like a better idea for me. I have nothing against dishwashers and will probably get one again (my husband always worries when one of us is ill about the dishes being sanitized enough without a dishwasher), so don’t think that this is a screed against them. It is a suggestion to keep current on washing dishes, etc. to make it easier to keep your kitchen clean and neat.
The person I posted this to replied that “I guess it is a good idea to wash the dishes as we use them. It would be easier.” I sort of hope that this is not someone who is stuck eating out of soap dishes and will have to take their dishes out to the car when it rains to get them cleaned.
Dirty dishes (etc) have other problems too - they will attract bugs and mice, but this idea works for other problems also. Take taxes (sorry, I guess I am mentioning them again) - when I finish a tax return I assemble all of the papers to go back to a client and staple the stack together. I write up the instructions, cover letter, invoice (you didn’t think I did it for fun did you? Well I do like filling in forms, but...) and put it all together to mail to the client, put it in the envelope, put a mailing label on the envelope, seal it up and put it where I keep the outgoing mail. (If the envelope is too big I have a card which says “Mail in bag” and I put that in with the outgoing mail and put the large piece in the bag used to carry the mail to the post office so I remember it.) I also gather together all of the papers which I want to keep for my records - a copy of the return, information notes I made, copies of some forms the client received, information the client wrote and sent to me, etc. I scan them into the computer and save the file to a “Current Clients” file and then staple the papers together and put them in my “to file” box. This way I have a hard copy to work from next year and permanent copy on the computer (of which I will make several backups which are kept in different places and on different media). I shred last year’s return’s hard copy as it was also stored on the computer last year. This way everything which needs to be sent to the client is done and everything I need to keep for myself is done. No lost papers.
After a craft project I try to clear up from it. I store any usable supplies left over, throw out what is not usable or too small an amount to used, and put the finished piece where it will be or where it will be held until it goes somewhere else (gifts, exhibitions, items to be sold).
So give it a try. Yes, I know you have heard it before, when you finish with something don’t leave it lying about - clean up! Each time you clean up as you finish or as you go there is that much less which will be needed to do something with in the future. Sometimes it even encourages me to clean up something else related - if I am putting away left over embroidery floss (thread) from a project and I see some other floss about or scissors or needles - I put them away too. The less new clutter, the easier to clear the old clutter bit by bit.
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