Author: Steven Aitchison (399 Articles)
The owner of this blog. Proud father, doting husband, blogger, hire me as freelance writer, and addiction worker
Gettings things done: the dirty dishes method
I have recently been reading more and more about productivity and getting
things done (GTD). I belive this is out of necessity as I have a lot
on my plate just now and balancing them all can be tricky. There are
a lot of things that I have come across that work for me and other things which
do not. I will be writing more about this in the future.
I have come across a trick which consistently works for me and that is breaking
the job down.
The dirty dishes method
Take any task and simplify it into different components. I will take
an everyday task as an example here; washing the dishes. It seems easy
enough but a lot of people are averse to washing the dishes and leave them
until they pile up and then you might need some mounaineering equipment to
get to the top of the pile. Obviously most people have a dishwasher but
the same rules apply.
Our brain looks at the pile of dishes and might think ‘that’s
far too much to do, I’ll do it later’. It thinks this way
as the dishes are usually disorganised and placed in piles that make it look
as if there are lots of dishes. Our brain immediately says ‘hey
this is going to take ages to get through this lot’ and it immediaitely
switches off to the task. Picture in your minds eye that pile of disorganised
dishes. Now picture those same dishes organised into piles of dinner
plates, tea plates, bowls, pans, cutlery. It looks so much more neater
and it looks less challenging.
So the next thing we do is organise them into piles. This way the job
doesn’t look so big.
Now to get started. To do this just tell yourself you will do the dinner
plates first and then you can do the tea plates later.
Once you’ve started the dinner plates you will automatically keep going
to the tea plates and you will have gathered momentum and continue until you
finish.
Breaking the job down
Do this with every single task in your life and you can get a hell of a lot
more done.
Some of the task I have done recently are:
Sorting out the mountain of paperwork I have at work. Using the breaking
up method, I look at what is most important, I then sort out the paperwork
into piles of priority, so I might have 10 -20 piles. I then work through each
pile in turn and devote 30 minutes of uninterrupted time per day to do it.
Other tasks include: visting clients, doing notes, decorating a house, daily
chores, going to the gym. We can literally do it in every area of our
lives.
To summarise the dirty dishes method:
- Identify the task to achieve
- Organise the task into smaller pieces
- Take each piece in turn and work on it
- Build momentum by continuing with the other pieces
- Task completed
Let me know if this method works for you or if you try another
method.
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Steve, my mom taught me to put all the glasses in hot, sudsy water first. Her rationale was that if I did not the glasses would come out spotted and dirty. Next the silver went in for the same reason. And, pots and pans were to be last — and those dirtiest of all at the tail end on the chore.
This process involves the left side of the brain – our great organizer.
I’ve not veered from the method except when modern technology entered the picture and I bought a dishwahser and learned a whole new process.
I talked to Mom while doing dishes – had some deep conversations. The dishwasher took the personal element away in a sense.
Thought you’d enjoy this perspective, Steven. Haven’t thought about it in years.
Hi Robyn
Thats a great point. I have some great conversations with my sons when doing the dishes together and they seem to open up a bit more when doing the dishes, my wife has said this on many occasions.
Breaking down large projects into multiple sub-tasks is the key to completing any project correctly… Only then will you be able to accurately evaluate the problems at hand.
hi Marc, you’re right however a lot of people look at the whole project and get dismayed sometimes by the enormity of it. You’re right though it’s great to break the project down, whatever it is.
Great advice for dish washing!