Continuous Cleaning

Ok, here's the long overdue blog entry on household cleaning techniques you've been so eagerly waiting for. You know, there are few things in life that are better than scrubbing your ceramic cooking plate with Dr. Beckmann's cleaning fluid for ceramic cooking plates (with jojoba oil), then taking out those last, most persistent specks of dirt with a razor blade and finally: resting your eyes on the perfect, shining, reflective, immaculate cooking plate. Ahhh... I love cleaning.

I like to call my favourite household cleaning technique Continuous Cleaning. Well, not out loud, but in my mind I do, because I'm a nerd obsessed with cleanliness. But anyway, by Continuous Cleaning I mean the same thing as Not Letting Your Household Get Dirty.

Washing the dishes might be a suitable example of this technique. Owners of a dishwasher, please use your imagination. This technique can be applied to all kinds of cleaning tasks. Let us compare the ways a) an anonymous, non-continously cleaning person and b) myself, a continuous cleaner, would typically handle diswashing during a week (note: exaggeration):

a) Get a clean glass from the cupboard every time you drink water. Put the glass in the sink after doing so. Leave food leftovers on plates and pile them onto stacks. Leave empty milk cartons, baby food jars and the like on the kitchen counter. Postpone washing the dishes until there aren't any clean containers for food left, except the ugly flower vase you received from your mother-in-law. Oh sod it, that can be used as a beverage container too. Complain noisily that dishwashing is dreadful. Finally, wash the dishes at the end of the week when raccoons have started taking over the garbage heap that once was the kitchen counter.

b) Use a single mug for coffee and other beverages for a day. Rinse empty milk cartons and baby food jars and put them away right when they are emptied. Wash the dishes after each dinner, if possible. If something spills on the kitchen counter, wipe it away immediately. Before going to sleep each night, wash the remaining dishes, if any.

Which method seems better? Ok, we all agree that b) is much better, at least for these reasons:
- there are clean containers for food available all week
- being in the kitchen doesn't cause weird, indescribable anxiety
- health hazards caused by mutated food leftovers and raccoon attacks are unlikely
- loud complaining by family members is scarce and therefore stress levels are tolerable.

Now which method seems less troublesome? Some might argue that method a) is less work because you can just slob away all week and then take care of the cleaning on Sunday. I'll maintain, however, that method b) is easier based on the following opinions facts:
- rinsing away non-dried food leftovers is significantly easier than scrubbing dried up, unidentified goo
- washing the dishes is easy when you have room to do it, i.e. the sink is not full of other dishes
- the total work seems easier, because washing up a couple of plates does not seem like an insurmountable task that takes up the whole Sunday afternoon
- the continuously clean environment lifts up your spirits so you'll have more energy to wash the dishes.

Ok, if this didn't convince you, I'll offer another example. Suppose you've spilled some coffee on the wall and floor on a frantic morning when trying to feed the kid in a hurry. If you clean it up right away, you'll be late, but at least it's free. If you leave it uncleaned, thinking that it's unjust having to clean it up in such a situation, the coffee will soak up into the wall and possibly warp the floor. And later, when selling the apartment, you'll either have to repaint the wall and have the floor leveled, or possibly accept an offer from a buyer that's thousands of units in the local currency below your request because of the damage. Beware!

Ok, this might get a little far-fetched. But please excuse me. I'm an engineer by trade and therefore mostly spend my working days figuring out solutions to problems, optimizing processes and convincing other people that the way I want to do it is the best way to do it. I can't just stop doing so at home, can I? And there's no point in telling me that "you've changed man, it used to be about the music", Mr. Hippie, you weren't born a guitar up your arse either, it just became located there some 20 years later. Everyone changes, all the time.