i kind of love this question. for me washing dishes is a bit of an ocd processes, but it's my system and it works for me.

i have a single sink, so i stop it up and fill with warm soapy water about 1/3 of the way full. dirty dishes are pre-rinsed and stacked on the let side of the sink. towels for clean dishes are laid out on the right side of the sink. silverware goes in to the water first to soak. then i start by washing anything flat that can be submerged in the water (using a sponge with one scrubby side) plates, shallow bowls, etc. i rinse each piece with warm water after it is washed. the sink fills with more and more water so as i get to bigger and deeper bowls, pots and pans they can be submerged as well. after the last large item is washed i drain the sink and wash and rinse the silverware.

i do let dishes stack up until there are enough to justify using a full sink of water.

Always wash glasses first - then work from least dirty to most dirty.

I throw them in the dishwasher and say "bon voyage." For the very few non-dishwasher friendly things we own... very hot water with a dish towel.

Everyday plates/cups/silverware go in my countertop dishwasher (to which I pledge my undying love on a regular basis). All pots, pans and larger cooking utensils go in a sink of sudsy water, are washed with a scrubby sponge, and air dried on a rack. Every few washes, the still-wet-and-soapy sponge gets zapped in the microwave for a few minutes. The sponge gets sterilized, and any spots or spills in the microwave get steamed off and wipe away effortlessly!

you let the sink pile up for a lethal amount of time and then pay your kid brother to wash em for you. ;D

mtnchica - I am thinking about getting a countertop dishwasher.... what brand are you using?

I developed my system as a child, growing up in a family of 10. The system is for washing a LOT of dishes by hand, and is designed to maximize air-drying (conning a sibling into drying was tricky, and we were always running short of hand towels!). I use a clean cloth washcloth, a long-handled brush, pot scrapers, and an onion-bag scrubby. I've almosts always had a double sink, and filled one with soapy water and the other with plain water for rinsing. The most important part for me as a child was organizing all the dirty dishes beforehand, dumping out ice, putting bowls together, scraping plates, etc.

Basically, you do big pots and mixing bowls first, before filling the sinks. Then wash plates and bowls, which dry the quickest, and while they are drying, you can build up plenty of glassware in the rinse sink. Put away the plates and bowls, then stack the glasses in the drainer. Now put the silverware in the soapy water to soak and wash tupperware, jars, small bits, etc. Put away the glassware, load the tupperware into the drainer, and start washing silverware. The tupperware is last because it's hard to dry with a towel (too many nooks and crannies), so it can sit in the drainer all night. Add the silverware and leave it to empty in the morning. Basically, you want both sinks and the drainer to be full at all times.

Then you just clean all the surfaces in the kitchen with your washcloth, wring it and hang it to dry overnight, and toss it in the laundry in the morning (minimizing wetness in the laundry hamper).

I also store dirty dishes in a large dishpan under the sink so that my 6 inches of counterspace don't get taken up with dishes.

Yes, it sounds OCD, but like I said, family of 10, lots of dishes. I've been polishing this system from the age of 5!

We fill the largest dirty dish with hot water and a squirt of soap. We then wash using that water and rinsing as we go. I generally wash glasses and mugs, then plates and pans, then silverware.

with a two basin sink, 1/2 - 2/3 full of soapy water. i put in the glasses and small items that aren't really dirty as the water is filling, lay out my drying towels, stack all other dishes into neat piles for placing in the water, then begin washing. i leave the silverware in the other basin to be prerinsed as i run water to rinse off the glasses. then the silverware all moves to the suds. wash them, leaving all in the dry basin to rinse in a minute. refill the sudsy side with bowls, then plates, then pots and pans in that order. if i have something that's above average sticky/greasy/etc, i leave that in the dry basin for the warm running rinse water to break down the particles.

i have the luxury of not needing to put away the dishes immediately, so they will often sit overnight and be put away dry in the morning.

my reasons for this method: washing cleaner to dirtier saves on refilling the soapy side with fresh soap and water. leaving silverware and any extra dirty dishes to soak in the rinse water spill saves on scrubbing.

Martha Stewart-style, as outlined in her Homekeeping Handbook. Yes I own it. It goes something like: hot water, two squirts of soap, wash glasses first, then plates, then silverware, then larger/dirtier items. Also, adding more soap to dirty water will not work. If the water is too greasy/dirty, you have to empty the sink and fill it up again. Air dry because it's more sanitary.

Washing dishes grosses me out. It's worse to have to dig through a sink of dirty soapy water to find the one fork I have left. I take all my dishes out of the sink, run a little water, then work from plates to bowls to cups. I have a second sink and a drainer in it so they all go in that. When my sink gets too full of water or it's time for the french press I drain it down and start again.

I hate dishes ><

am i the only one who gets grossed out by the fill up the sink with water routine?

i vastly prefer to pile everything into the sink, rinse and stack to the side. soap up each piece with a scrubby sponge and put it back in the sink, then rinse off and put in dish drainer.

oh, man. my husband and i are horrible water hogs. it really is shameful how much water we waste hand washing dishes. we do have an apartment sized, front loading dishwasher and praise its function regularly, but we also use a TON of plastic containers that i refuse to wash in the dishwasher. these, along with cutting knives, pots and pans, the french press and anything larger than a dinner plate get hand washed. my general method goes a little something like this - wet the sponge and squirt it with soap, soap up dishes with the sponge using a little water as possible, then, with the hot water continually running (don't hit me!), rinse and stack the dishes to air dry.

Yesterday my Mother said I washed dishes like a New Yorker. She meant that I left the water running as I did the dishes but with a small, shallow sink it is the only way. Glasses, silverwave, plates, then cooking utensils, pots. I wash everything as I cook and clean the dishes when I'm done. My kitchen is far to small to do anything else.

I grew up with the double sink method of filling one basin with water, doing the glasses first, then silverware, plates, then pots/pans. However, nowadays I just stack the dishes up to the side of my sink, let the water run, squirt the soap onto my dishrag and wash each item individually under the water. Not sure which way is more wasteful but this seems to work for me.

Oh, and the dishwasher gets its fair amount of use with a full load going through a cycle every 3 or 4 days.

experimenter: You're not alone. This is exactly how I do my dishes. I think it's more efficient and wastes less water...it also keeps me from having to dig around in murky dishwater. Blech.

I never understood filling up the sink with water. Doesn’t that just make the water dirty when you put all the dirty dishes in it? Where does all the dirty water go? Don't you still have to rinse the dishes? I definitely prefer to wet the dishes by running a little bit of water, tehn wet/soap a sponge and then scrub each dish. If I’m being green, I’ll stack up the soapy dishes on the counter and rinse them all at the end or I rinse each dish as I go.

experimenter - i'm with you. i used to work in a restaurant in my youth, and the idea of dipping my hands into a murky sink filled with floating wilted lettuce leaves and globs of mysterious fat makes me queasy to this day. add to that my aversion to wasting water, and you've got your method to a t. i also think that a scrubby sponge is pretty much the only thing i can wash dishes with.

If you let the water run the whole time you're doing the dishes, you are wasting a LOT of water. If you let the HOT water run the whole time you're doing the dishes, you're wasting not only water but also energy.

I have a method that I think saves water and will assuage those afraid of the full sink of nasty water. I think it's gross to just put dirty dishes in a tub of water and then wash all the dishes with water full of scum and nasty bits. I totally aggree that that is not appetizing.

Here's what I do:

I have a large single sink and a plastic tub that fits inside and fills about half the sink. I put a small amount of hot soapy water in the tub and look for the cleanest dishes (usually glasses) to wash first. I use the soapy water to wash them, letting it drain into the open sink area. I put the soaped glasses in the tub as I go. When the tub fills up with glasses, I rinse using warm water over the tub, so I collect the rinse water in the tub to use for the next round of sudsing. Next come the plates, where I wipe them with a soapy sponge with water from the tub, letting the dirty gunk flow into the open sink and down the drain. If necessary, I fill the sponge with water and squeeze it over a sudsed plate to get gooey bits off. Once the plate is free from gunk, I put it in the plastic tub of water. Continue until the tub is full, then again rinse with warm water over the tub. Repeat this in increasing order of dirtiness until all dishes are clean!

I like my method because:

1. It uses very little water, and the water it does use is used for two purposes (rinsing a previous round then sudsing the next round)
2. The water stays clean and I never have a vat of scummy water with food bits in it
3. It is efficient, because I wash all dishes of a similar type at once

just say NO to dirty dish water! soap all dishes first (after light rinse), stack to the side of the sink and then rinse off with hot water and place in drying rack. Next up silverwear (which has been hanging out at the bottom of the sink all along). Same technique - soap all first, then rinse. Glasses/cups go next. And finally pots/pans!!
And it all goes smoother with these: http://www.containerstore.com/shop/kitchen/sinkArea/accessories?productId=10006915

I hate doing dishes too.

I usually put all my dirty dishes in the sink and fill bowls, glasses with water to soak. When it comes time to do the dishes, I pour out the cold water from these items and then plug up the sink, turn on hot water and squirt soap all over the dishes. I let the water fill up so it mostly covers the dishes, turn it off and then go to work. I do plates, bowls, mugs first. Then glasses and silverware. Then pots and pans (which have been sitting on the stovetop until this point.)

I put them all in the other side of the sink, and then drain the dirty water while the insinkerator is going. Then I spray off the soapy dishes with plain water, stacking them in the dish rack and letting them air-dry. Except for silverware and pots and pans, those are towel-dried to prevent oxidation.

And I ALWAYS wash out the sink afterwards!

Yellow dish gloves and water as hot as the sink will make it. No piling up dishes to rinse.

We think CleanGenuity, our line of kitchen cleaning tools is best. But then again, we might be a little biased. :)

www.chefn.com

Instead of filling the full sink with water, I rinse down the largest dish that I need to wash and use that for my dish water. It uses less water than the sink, and allows me to rinse/wipe any really grungy dishes into the sink beside my dish water without contaminating the clean side where I stack my washed-but-not-rinsed dishes. When the clean side gets full, I run hot water to rinse off the suds & stack, then continue washing. It keeps the dishwater from getting gunky but also uses less water. According to our last water bill, our household of 2 uses 1/3 the water that my boyfriend's parents do.

(They do a full wash to "rinse" the dishes before running them through the dishwasher. Wha?)

i'm with tazer. i'll never forget when my mom came to visit in my first apartment and she did the dishes with the fill the sink method. the following week i had to go through and wash every dish i owned because they were all disgusting and greasy!

i, too, worked in restaurants--including one brief stint as kitchen help--and unless someone is going to build me the 3-part sink where i can have the pulldown sprayer and the bleach dunk, i feel a lot better running things through the dishwasher. (before i get screamed at, we have a ton of dishes and so i never have to run it unless it is truly full.)

TATTERH00D - very nearly the same as my technique, except that I rinse over my container of water so that I can keep the clean rinse water for more sudsing!

Since March of '99 we have not had a dishwasher.
My method is wash whatever goes in or near your mouth first when the water is the cleanest. So drinking vessels and utensils go first.
Then stuff that is not that bad in terms of gunk build up, like plates that were rinsed so gravy, ketchup or what have you don't cause a need for soaking. Stuff for the plastic/tin/glass recycling bins is next. Final items, pots and pans.

I don't mind doing the dishes by hand as I find calming and warming. I am not a fan of being the one drying the dishes. If I am doing them on my own...I let them air dry.

eeeek just the thought of rinsing dishes with dirty water makes me squirm. I used to use a small bowl inside my sink filled with soapy water and let the dishes accumulate for awhile but I realized that a bowl of still water covering dirty plates with rancid foodbits, grease.. etc must harvest a lot of microorganisms so I stopped doing it that way.

I wet the dishes with hot water, turn off the water, scrub all of them with a sponge, set them aside and rinse them one by one under running water. Then airdry.

Tools: gloves, dishwasher, 2-basin sink, dishcloth, scrub brush, steel wool

If cooking/baking a lot, our method is to soak items as we cook & eat so that less elbow-grease & water is required later. Although the sink is filled a couple of times, I believe this uses less water than if we didn’t pre-soak & used running water ...
- I ½ fill one sink with hot, soapy water to soak dirty dishes/pans as we cook & to dunk hands in after sayyyyy ... chopping an onion, etc. Really gunky big pots/pans are sprinkled with baking soda & a bit of dishwater to soak on the stove while we eat. By the time we’re done eating, stubborn gunk has soaked off the items.
- Dishwasher is filled with everything except large pots/pans & large plastic ware. We don’t run the dishwasher unless it’s full.
- We replace the dirty dishwater with fresh, HHHHHHHOT, soapy water to hand-wash/scrub everything else. If items are really gunky/greasy, baking soda is added to the soapy water.
- The 2nd sink is cleaned & filled with cold water for rinsing hand-washed items (rinse water is replaced as needed). We let items air-dry in the dish-drain.
- Wash down counters, appliances (as needed), table & sink.
Dishcloth is changed daily. Everything cloth in the kitchen is washed in a separate wash load (i.e., cloths, drying towels, potholders, aprons).

It's interesting reading everyone's different methods!

I just have one sink. I take out anything that is not a glass, mug, or cutlery. I plug the sink, turn on the hot water, squirt some soap and start washing things right away with a cotton dishcloth. I let the water run to fill up the sink and to rinse off the glasses until there's enough water in the sink. I just turn on the water for a second to rinse anything. Once all the glasses and mugs are done and in the dish rack, I do the cutlery. Then I do the bowls, plates, containers, etc., basically any medium size items. I do a quick rinse as I go. If the sink starts getting full I let some of the water out and put more in. Then I do the larger items such as pots and pans.

I should get a in to do the rinsing in though. I really don't see what the big deal is with having dishes sit in the water. All my dishes come out clean. You actually have to WASH the dishes, and the soap takes away the dirt.

I had a friend staying with me and she would just run the water and weakly wipe dishes with the soapy sponge. I had to rewash everything because she didn't actually clean the dishes.

lifeabundant - I like the idea of sprinkling baking soda in pots and pans while you finish eating. I have used bs for burnt on food, but I think I will do this from now on.

I have only 1 sink and very little counter space, so what I do is, get a plastic basin and put some soap filling it to middle with hot water (I don't have a mixer so the water either comes cold or too hot).
Then I throw in silverware, small bowls, glasses and tupperware lids. I scrub it all then stack it in the actual sink.
After that I put dishes in the basin and rinse what's in the sink. I keep doing that following pots and leave big pots that don't fit in the basin for last so I can do them in the sink.

@powwlita--I'm using a Danby. I think it's a few years old--I scored it at a local thrift shop, in perfect condition (!) for about $40.

floursack dishtowels really shine up crystal. My mom sells them on etsy:

www.kav122.etsy.com

Ten years of research in a lab has meant I have to know how to have things scrupulously clean and this has transferred over to my home kitchen.

My own experience has shown me that when you are scrubbing something, if it is submerged at the same time in warm, soapy water; it will come clean more quickly. We have a tendency to use the brush or cloth while the item is in our hands, raised from the sink. This is ineffective. Wash underwater. Then, a little trickle of cold water to rinse.

P.S. I cannot stand the sink being used as a storage space. Stack to the side. But nothing in my apartment is allowed to stand in the sink (cutlery aside) for more than five minutes!