Caught myself scrubbing dishes wrong for 15 years

I was at my sister's place last Sunday watching her wash dishes and she did this quick scrape and rinse thing. I always scrub every dish with soap and hot water for like 2 minutes each. She told me that's how you wear out pans and waste water. I timed myself after I got home and I was spending about 45 minutes on dishes that could take 15. The thing that tipped me off was she had the same cheap IKEA plates for 6 years and mine all looked scratched up after 2. Has anyone else realized they were doing a basic chore totally wrong their whole life?

2 comments

2 Comments

robert_hayes13d ago

Oh man, that hit close to home... I was the same way with vacuuming for years, just going over the same spots over and over instead of doing it efficiently. It's wild how we just assume we're doing it right until someone casually shows us a better way.

holly_price13d ago

Actually, you kind of have it backwards. Its not that we were doing it wrong, its that we were doing it in a way that worked for us even if it looked messy. I used to zigzag all over the place on my living room rug, going back over the same spots three or four times before moving on. But my roommate showed me you can just do one straight pass and get it done in half the time. The thing is, that old way actually worked fine for getting the carpet clean, it just took longer. So its not really about being wrong, its about learning a faster way to do something you already knew how to do. Its more of a "didnt know there was a shortcut" thing than a "was doing it completely wrong" thing.