How to Wash Dishes by Hand Very Quickly

You know it well, that-end-of-the-day heaping sinkful of dirty dishes. There are dishes and cups at ungodly angles, pan handles and spatulas sticking out like arms in full rigor, having reached in vain for rescue; forks, spoons like shrapnel from some bloody, ancient war. Godspeed! It’s going to take you forever to get all these darn dishes done, right? Not if you use the tips from my dishwashing method!

I can get a gigantic, heaped-over sink full of dishes done in about five minutes. How? I don’t mess around with soaking time, I don’t dry, and I let the water do a lot of double and even triple duty. Below are my tips.

Tip #1–Clear a path so you have some space to work in the sink.

For this method, you’re going to need to have a bit of space in the sink-basically, just a clear spot on the bottom, about the size of a dinner plate. Get a bar towel, or plastic sink tub, and remove some of the dishes, and place them on the sidebar or counter, so you have room to work.

When you’re done washing the dishes left in the sink, move on to the remaining batch you’ve set aside. Of course, if you can clear a proper working space without having to remove some, all the better.

Tip #2–Use soap directly on a sponge

Forget dishrags, scrubbers with handles, and fancy gadgets. All you need to do dishes is a kitchen sponge and soap. The kind of sponge with a scrub pad on one side is the best. Get the sponge wet, and apply some dish soap directly on the sponge.

Tip #3–Wash like things together as much as you can.

This means trying to wash all the cups, then all the plates, bowls, utensils, silverware, etc. Of course, with a million dishes in the sink, it isn’t going to be so organized, but try to stick to doing batches of items as much as you can. Grouping like things together also allows ultimately for better drying and easier putting away.

Tip #4-Use most of your energy washing the dishes.

This sounds so obvious it’s absurd, but I mean it literally. Use all of your energy washing the dishes, as opposed to rinsing the dishes. Of course they have to be rinsed, but they rinse themselves nicely. How’s that? Well, after you wash say, a cup, place it so it stands in the sink, under the faucet, while you wash another cup.

Let the water rinse the cup for you. By the time you are finished washing the cup in your hand, the first one will be fairly rinsed. Turn the faucet-rinsed cup over, and place it on the drying rack. Repeat with all the items: cups, dishes, bowls, etc. With plates, you can stack them under the running water, and place them in the dish drainer when they’re all done. Bowls should be rinsed like cups.

Allowing the faucet to rinse the dishes this way is the key to reducing your dish-doing time. Even though it only takes several seconds to individually rinse each item separately after you’ve washed it, it takes about the same time to do so as it does washing it, when you count putting the sponge down and whatnot. That means rinsing the traditional way doubles the time it takes.

Tip #5–Let the leftover rinsing water to “soak” items.

Unless you’ve got baked-on troubles, most things don’t need nearly the amount of soaking time you’d think, to get properly loosened up for easy washing. If there are items that need some soaking, simply use the leftover rinsing water from the cups, bowls, and containers. As you tip them over before placing them in the drying rack, simply pour the contents into or onto the items in the sink in need of soaking.

Tip #6–Wash silverware a handful at a time.

Leave the silverware and utensils for last. When everything else is washed, pick up several of the same type of silverware, all facing the same way. For example, you’ll be holding spoons with the handles all facing down, and the spoon side up, the concave side facing you. Fan them out a bit, and wash them all together. Wash the fronts, backs, and handles together, and then rinse them as a single unit.

Wash as many together as you can do effectively. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll even be picking up and washing spoons and forks together. Shoot for the moon! Seriously, though, this is an amazingly effective way to get a ton of silverware washed well, and very quickly.

That’s it. Use these tips, and you are going to cut the time it takes you to do dishes in half-or less!