Just two weeks in to our “new normal” pandemic schedule, we had a major breakdown in the dirty dishes management realm. Our quarantine crew at that point was myself, my wife, our daughter (22), and two youngest boys (11 & 9) with our eldest son (21) scheduled to return home from his junior year of college soon as classes were moving to online-only. The situation was dire — we were running the dishwasher 2x per day and my wife and I were working at home (while trying to maintain the younger boys’ distance-learning schedule). A solution was needed and quick. Enter: 1 Plate Per Customer.
Too. Many. Dishes.
The primary issue, when I boiled it down to the volume, was individual responsibility and too much inventory. Our kids were terrible at putting dishes in to the dishwasher if and when it was emptied by the individual charged with the task — but that usually fell to Mom and occasionally me. Chore completion, by the way, was a problem, however, we’ve addressed that and it’s a subject for another post. The issue wasn’t just the kids, however, we were equally guilty.
In my Agile-process-everything brain, I broke out the steps and looked for opportunities to optimize. I wanted to grok why there was so much volume of dirty dishes vs. users of dishes. This process, naturally, required taking inventory. Once completed, I was shocked to find that we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 cups, 15 plates, and 12 bowls. This created a situation where each member would take from available stock until it was exhausted and the only recourse was reset the stock via dishwasher runs (at 2 hour cycles). The solution was clear: we needed to reduce available stock while injecting individual responsibility.
Your Dishes, Your Responsibility
The notion of giving individuals a “set” for dining isn’t new. The military has mess kits and, if you’re a camping family, you have some notion of a mess kit for each family member. Taking this method home, I wagered, can’t be a new idea and I’m always keen to find folks that have iterated on ideas before jumping in. To my surprise, I couldn’t find any examples. I must have been over-thinking it, I concluded, as I tend do with family work flow elements. With that in mind, I set out to keep it simple: find a product that has a wide range of matching tableware (plate, bowl, cup) that will allow me to assign a color set to each household member who would be responsible for their set.
Simple. You use your stuff which is identified by your color set, you wash it by hand, put it on the drying rack, and it is clean and ready to go when you need it next. To account for utensils, I held those to be owned by “the house” and would be washed in our weekly (vs. 2x daily) run of the dishwasher.
The Products
I found a product line by Sweese on Amazon that fit the bill as far as having 6 colors that covered the plate, bowl, and cup. They are a bit funky looking, but, I dig them and love the colors. The kids enjoyed picking their colors and I ended up with the middle/medium blue. Everyone also got a cheapy version of a 32oz Nalgene bottle for water.
For flatware, I ordered 3 sets of 12 each knife, fork, and spoon from KaTom restaurant supply + a countertop utensil holder for ease of use. We want to run our kitchen like a commercial kitchen, basically, so that does the job fine given our once per week dishwasher run goal. I don’t have a link for the exact products, unfortunately, as my order history is missing this order for some odd reason. I don’t have a link for the next key piece either, the over-sink dish rack, as my wife picked that up somewhere — maybe Amazon — but you can find them anywhere.
The Results
The grand 1 Plate Per Customer experiment started June 4, 2020 with the assignment of dish color sets and the boxing up of all other plates, bowls, and cups. As of this writing, July 25th, 2020, we’ve had nearly 2 months of implementation and iteration. I’d say, overall, it’s been a success. The kids have taken to owning their “colors” and mostly use & wash. We get a little loose on the weekends but pick back up on Monday. The weekly dish run is mostly still done by my wife and I, but, that will change in the next phase of our Chore Chart…look for that exciting article soon.
Some key learnings are in order because, let’s be honest, it wasn’t smooth. Kids, by and large, suck at washing things…any and every thing. The first couple of weeks were spent going behind them after they’d washed an item and racked it to point out what they missed. It was “more” work for each of us (wife and I), but, worth it because they were learning…and we didn’t want them getting sick. Another hiccup was that we burned through gallons of liquid dish soap. Seriously, a ton of the stuff. I bough a commercial jug thinking it would last forever but it was gone in weeks because the kids were just squirting it like water in to a cup or whatever. Another teaching moment there, for sure, to use 1 single drop per item, run hot water over it — and DO NOT stand there with the hot water running! — then scrub, quick cold water rinse, then rack. My wife recently found a dish soap product that puts out a foam burst per trigger squeeze and it is much more regulated than trusting the 1 drop rule.
So, there you have it in all of its sexy details. The kids have learned responsibility, some water conservation practices, we’ve cut down the messes, cut down dish washer cycles, and, overall, have created a new method to run the household better. This tactic is here to stay, I’d say.
Our #parenthacking efforts don’t end with this experiment. Stay tuned for more thoughts on trying to run an Agile-ish household in a post-COVID 19 world. My wife and I are like most working parents — myself in technology now mostly at home and my wife split between home and the brewery we co-founded where she is the GM — with distance-learning kids and all of the fun that comes with this new territory. Mayhaps some of our struggles and efforts can help and I’d love to hear your tips. Parent hacking takes a village.
