Flow in the kitchen.

 
 


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