Work goes so much better if you think in terms of flow. That goes double in the kitchen.
You know the story Cheaper by the Dozen (the book, not the movie, which I excoriate for its wanton digression from the perfectly satisfying and amusing facts as well as its seriously flawed depiction of sibling interaction)?
There's a prequel not many people know about called Time Out for Happiness. Being a literature geek who could never in a million years have done one worthwhile thing at all in engineering school, I nevertheless have time- and motion-management in my blood, thanks to my engineering professor Dad, who, although not big and tall and red-headed Scot, but rather not-so-tall, fit, and dark Egyptian, is in fact a recipient of the Frank and Lillian Gilbreth Award in Industrial Engineering!
So I loved this book. For one thing, it's a sweet love story of two remarkable people. But in it, the young Gilbreth wins a lot of bets from veteran bricklayers that he, a seemingly greenhorn wet-behind-the-ears office guy, can out-perform the best of them in laying bricks.
He does it simply by analyzing the wasted motion the men have accepted as unquestioned components of their job. Where they bent and heaved, he moved the stack of bricks and bucket of mortar to arm level. Where they backtracked, he moves smoothly from one motion to the next. Over the course of a thousand movements, these little savings add up. His walls were straighter, neater, and more quickly built than theirs. They accused him of cheating!
Okay, let's think about the routine in the kitchen and start figuring out where to cheat!
I gave you a head start with the idea of training each child to put his own dish, cup, and utensil into the dishwasher or at the sink, and to throw their own trash away.
{And, of course, this means starting with an empty dishwasher or sink.}
Even a two-year old can do a little. Do not end up being the dirty dish rounder-upper.
Now let's think about FLOW. And time. And motion.
Unfortunately, very few kitchens are designed from the get-go with the proper flow. If they were, at the very least there would be one center (with a sink) for food preparation and one (with a sink) for dish cleanup. Since most of us have to deal with all of it using one sink, flow is essential!
{If I had to choose between a double sink and a dishwasher — and I think this is a choice many have to make because of the size of the cabinets — I would go for the double sink. Also, note my goose neck faucet. It's the very bottom of the line from Home Depot — I think it cost under $30 ten years ago. The manufacturer will replace for free any part of it that breaks, and the goose neck makes filling and washing pots so much easier. I'm not kidding you, put this on your to-do list. Now, it would be better if the hot and cold water were on one handle.}
Here's my first attempt at a diagram for you, please forgive the amateurish graphics.
If dirty dishes must be stacked, they get stacked on the left. If they are to be washed, they go from left to right — otherwise, they go straight to the dishwasher. |
Let's get a flow that everyone understands. It should be simple and it should make sense on a basic level of where things land and where they go.
{What's funny is when you have a guest who has a flow in her own kitchen that's opposite yours. When my friend Therese and her family come over, they automatically put their dirty things on the right, where I put my clean things.}
Don't think that you can't do what I do. You can do it better, because while my kitchen's overall space is huge, it's mostly taken up with doors, windows, and a fireplace! There are very few cabinets and not much counterspace. I had a more efficient kitchen in our little apartment in Washington, D.C., where only one person could fit in at a time! At least I didn't waste my steps!
Notice that I have some dishes drying there on a cloth. When we unload the dishwasher, there are always some plastic containers that are not quite dry. They can't be put away wet or bacteria will grow. They have to sit there a while. Any hand-washed dishes go there also. When everything is put away, I simply remove the towel and hang it to dry — no rack necessary on ordinary days. When there is a lot of handwashing to be done, I do have a wooden rack that I keep folded up and hanging from a nail on the wall.
Every kitchen windowsill has a little “miscellany” spot, doesn't it? |
The food (refrigerator) is to the left, the bread is in a drawer below the toaster. I have to keep the pots in the open cupboard on the left, and it's not the best place ever, but I removed the cabinet doors so I wouldn't have to bend and reach behind doors for them.
So here's your homework (since we really need to get on this well before Christmas!):
1. Think about the flow of clean dishes to table, dirty dishes to sink/dishwasher, and clean dishes back to cabinets. Think about how you can establish a routine that makes sense and save steps, even if it's not perfect. You might have to rearrange some things, and when you do, clean out the cabinets before you put things back! A big help: put the dishes in as accessible a place to children as you can.
My clean dishes should really go in a cabinet closer to the dishwasher, rather than crossing back over the dirty dish area, but there isn't one! Should I waste my time dreaming about how to renovate the kitchen, or should I work with what I have?
Class?
Work with what I have.
Right!
I need to get something to hang that little felt wreath up with! |
2. While we're being all engineer-y, let's also be girly (not that engineers can't be girls, as proven by the aforementioned pre-feminist-era and wildly competent Lillian Gilbreth) and make things pretty!
You probably have a windowsill like I do behind your sink, but whatever you have, remove everything from it, scrub around the faucet, behind the sink, and the whole windowsill or shelf or whatever you have. If it's a wall, wash it. Then make it pretty however you would like, and maybe a little Christmas-y Advent-y, and we'll have the very first ever Like Mother, Like Daughter linky party to show off!
This area above the sink is our own little personal shrine, isn't it? If the bedroom is the heart of our marriage and the dining room table is the heart of our family life (more on that another time!), I think the kitchen windowsill is the heart of a mother's working…well, heart. So let's make it reflect that.
Let's do it on Friday, shall we? Get your picture of your clean and pretty sink area and tell a little about a step you took towards flow if that's an issue you have, or how you work your flow if you have it together. You can post on your blog and share your post, or you can post on Flickr or whatever photo sharing you use.
XOXO
MamaHen says
Oh, I loooovvvveeee this idea. Actually this is one thing I do have down. A flow in the kitchen, but I didn't even realize that was what it was. It just works for me. I'll be scrubbing the sink and will link up Friday.
Oh, we are still working on the potty-training like you said. At first he was confused because I wasn't getting upset, and then he was mad. But he stands in the little spot and I can tell he is trying to figure out how long I can hold out. He can look pretty pitiful and sometimes I just want to laugh, but I don't . I just go on my merry way and “get to him when I can….” 🙂
Brenda@CTB&Me says
I not only grew up next to an engineering university, I married one thirty-six years ago.
This made me chuckle so much because my husband always talked about the best flow of “traffic” and getting things accomplished efficiently.
I agree about the double sink. When we bought this house in the country, my Realtor thought I'd hate the kitchen because there was no dishwasher. Instead, I have a double sink and a nice view through the window. 🙂
Amy says
My husband and I were just talking about the flow, or lack there of, in our kitchen. We moved into his mother's house after we got married, and bought it after she died. We have really changed anything from the way she had things arranged. I really need to look at the flow in our kitchen and see what works better for our family. I also need to get better at having the kids help put things in the sink. I have a 2 3/4 year old and 22 month old twins. I nevr would have thought to start this young, but it's better to start early and get good habits going now!
_Leila says
You know what? They love to help and be “big.” Just go for it!
priest's wife says
Auntie Leila- I am pathetically proud because I scrubbed my windowsill and some decorative items above the cabinets today- and wouldn't you know it- the drinking glasses you recommended came today along with cereal bowls! My husband said I got an extra big St Nick present this year
_Leila says
Good job!
Magda says
Thank you for giving me a fun challenge while my husband is out of town for a few days. Also, thank you for the book recommendation. I'd read Belles on Their Toes and another couple by Mrs. Gilbreth, but I don't think I've read Time Out for Happiness.
I love your organizational posts!
Anna says
Auntie Leila, I have been reading here long enough to know better, but I don't usually have my counters cleaned off enough to have a flow!
I hosted Thanksgiving (with a clean kitchen!) about the same time as you wrote about kids helping out and that has been a good boost for me to keep going. So tonight I'm reading this post, and my kitchen view is just to the right of my laptop screen. I can see now that while I have a vague sense of flow, I can make it much clearer. Before now, the dishes go wherever there's room. Now, the dishes will go on the right, no question!
Thank you!
Rachael says
I think I have a good flow in my kitchen. I was doing great on Thanksgiving while cooking for 12 adults, but when Grandma, Aunt and Cousin showed it, every thing slowed down. ah-well, it was worth it having them around. I think I'm gonna do my own post on my kitchen, pictures and all. Good idea, Auntie Leila!
Anitra says
I've known for years that the way we put things away in our kitchen could be improved, but I always thought I would have to take EVERYTHING out to make that happen… Thinking about flow has made me realize that I can probably switch one or two cabinets around and be much happier with what I have.
Can't put the kid dishes anywhere accessible, though – there really isn't anywhere in our kitchen that is little-kid-friendly. 🙁
Deirdre says
The way the kitchen in my apartment here at school is set up, my kitchen flow necessarily goes from right to left. It's a weird thing to have switched from the home pattern, but there was no way around it!
When we first got here, I went with my suitemates to Ikea. I think the wooden drying rack was the most valuable purchase I made that day.
I've actually been thinking recently that I needed to hang something pretty above the sink (not a *single window in our kitchen! and just an ugly, bare space above the sink) to make it homey-er. I'll be working on that…
Breanna says
You will probably mention this in future kitchen posts, but really if you spend ten minutes a day in a new house *thinking* as you work, you'll save yourself so many steps. I learned this working as a nurse, where running up and down the hall getting supplies from the med room could really eat into your schedule. Get everything you need to do a job on one trip, if you can (i.e., fill your mixing bowl with measuring cups, spoons, spatula, mixing attachments, and the vanilla extract before you tote it over to wherever you're mixing–or, ideally, have all that in a cupboard above your stand mixer). Arranging stuff makes a big difference, but so does making sure that you're not taking more steps than you have to out of habit. (Like when I finally realized it was dumb to put the plates away individually from the dishwasher, instead of stacking them and carrying the stack. Duh.)
_Leila says
Yes Miss Smarty Pants, I am going to mention this! 🙂
One thing at a time. But you are so right, and every woman who plans to have a family should get training as a nurse, for many reasons!
Now, I want to see a picture of your sink on Friday! 🙂
Rochelle says
Love this! My mother-in-law's kitchen isn't my favorite set up (counters much too far apart due to floor plan), but she has awesome flow at the sink and it was the first place I experienced this. Life changing. 🙂 Her's is right to left, as is mine because her dishwasher is on the left. I'm going to take “before” (right now) and “after” pictures of my sink/flow. As to a window, that would be lovely, but I'm with Deidre. But I'll find a way to make it prettier. 🙂
Heidi says
I'm always on the look-out for more Gilbreth books (I think I've found all of them, and then another one turns up). Ernestine wrote “Rings Around Us” about beginning her own (much smaller) family, and I have Lillian Gilbreth's “Management in the Home.” Reading this post, though, it is clear that I have not recently picked up the all-about-flow “Management in the Home” recently…
_Leila says
The truth is that if you have a small family you can get away with not thinking a lot of things through. My aim with my housekeeping posts is to enable the mother (probably homeschooling) of a large family (probably not affluent) to keep a reasonably clean, neat and tidy house and still have time to do other things and not feel like a drudge, slug, and charwoman. The problem is when the small-family people's ideas take over. Then the big families think they are doing something wrong. Which they are, but not in the way they think! (I.e. the problem isn't the kids, staying at home, not having money, or homeschooling, it's just losing the collective memory of how to manage a large household!).
Tiffany says
This, this, and this. Thank you for your clarity and the willingness to share the secrets to what is otherwise drowning in drudgery (speaking for myself!)
Heidi says
I had to re-login & only the first section of my comment survived – but after the Gilbreth books comment, I said this:
I hadn't even finished reading your post when I went into the kitchen and moved the drying rack from one side of the sink to the other side. We'd put it on the left when we moved into our apartment a year and a half ago because my husband was chief dishwasher and said he preferred it there. His time these days is much better spent plugging away at his dissertation, though, so I'm the dishwasher – so [*lightbulb moment*] I moved the rack!
Moving the rack and putting away the toaster was like a multiple-thousands-of-dollars kitchen renovation for our kitchen. Workspace! Flow! Less clutter, cleaner lines! (And when I showed the new set-up to my husband, he couldn't recall having had a preference for the rack on the other side in the first place….)
Thank you! (can I be you when I grow up?)
(& now that I've read your reply to my original comment, I'd like to add that I'm grateful for your wise words of advice as this mother of a [very] small family prepares, we hope, to have a large, homeschooling, and definitely-not-wealthy one.)
Shivayamama says
I certainly struggle with kitchen flow, especially now that we are having our sons help us with the cleaning of dishes. This is a great post to get the ideas flowing. Thank you 🙂
Emily says
Fun! I have my kitchen pretty, my pictures taken, and my blog post is nearly ready to go. I'll link up on Friday!
Veronica Greear says
Wish I had a blog to do a linky for, such a fun and great and inspiring idea! new reader here, and am in love with it. I am on my fifth home in my 10 year marriage, we just moved in July, and this is the FIRST (?!) time I'd had enough training/wisdom from various sources to think about putting things where they needed to be for good “flow” in my kitchen!!! It is just a DELIGHT I tell you. Thought I'd tell you this: just put my newest and favorite-est addition to behind my sink-a picture of a rooster on the beach in Kauai that we just bought last week when we went! It's beautiful, so unique, and such a memory-reminder to me, I knew when i bought it what I wanted it for.
Tabitha says
Flow is a real problem in my really odd kitchen. I have the dishes accessible to little people, but that low cupboard is far across the kitchen under the long counter. There is only one small cupboard above the dishwasher and I have the baking supplies there. The small cupboard near the stove has spices and bowls with the pans below that counter. If I put the dishes above the dishwasher the littlest ones can't get a cup or help set the table. Is changing that worth it?
_Leila says
Only you can assess what's worth what.
I personally think having things accessible for children to help is worth a bit of criss-crossing, but maybe you can tweak it a little. Watch how people move and see what you can do.
Also, they grow 😉
Crafty P says
So good to hear. I've been working hard all week with the children (8,6,3,3) on their “gift to daddy” when he's home for dinner: no one touching their food till Mama sits down and we pray, no complaining about what I made (seriously!), asking to be excused politely and taking the dishes to the sink, rinsing and putting them in the dishwasher. It has been WONDERFUL! The littles are doing a grand job carrying their plates and helping to put things in the dishwasher and the big are rinsing and doing the same. THEN I wash and THEY dry! HEAVEN! Thanks for kicking my butt into gear, Auntie Leila!
Rachael says
I did it, I created a post just about the flow in my kitchen. I'm quite proud of it actually. http://youngernews.blogspot.com/2010/12/flow-in-k…
I'd love feedback, my mom isn't around to do that for me (and she had efficiency down pat).
Julie says
I may or may not get a little territorial over dishes not being put on the correct side of the sink (opposite of yours), but it works so much better when there are zones for specific tasks!
Leila says
You have to, right? If you don’t stay on their case, people will be messing up your flow all over the place.
Ally | The Speckled Goat says
Oh, I would so love a window in front of my sink. I came all the way down the comments just to say that.
Currently, we handwash everything (no dishwasher!) and I go from left to right, ending with the drying rack in the oddly shaped corner on the far right. But then I cross over to put stuff away… but if I did it the opposite direction, 1) things would just feel wrong and 2) we risk a high chance of people walking past the counter on the left and knocking stuff off, since it sits just at the only entryway from main door to the rest of the house.