A Brilliant Idea

The title of this post may be deceiving...but not purposely so!

For the past week, my husband and I have been participating in a fitness challenge. We wear a pedometer (it's called a Pebble) all day long, and the goal is to have 7,000 steps each day. (I know, WOW, right?)

Since we both have desk jobs, this really is no easy thing. While he is able to walk on his lunch break, my lunch is spent running errands, catching up on all my projects and side jobs...you get the idea.

So, we decided the best thing to do was to walk our entire housing complex every night after dinner. The weather has been perfect, and it gives us a nice bit of time to spend together, too.

The only problem I've been running into is the after dinner kitchen cleanup.

Before, after dinner I would spend about 30 minutes in the kitchen: restoring the table, putting away leftovers, rinsing dishes, loading the dishwasher, wiping down stove, counters and sink...and whatever else may need to be done in there.

Now...well, there's just no time for that! I'm actually pretty good at cleaning up after myself WHILE I'm cooking, if I make myself, so I've kicked that discipline into high gear. But that still leaves all the dishes that the food is served out of. And the leftovers. And the table.

I put my brilliant idea into action last night and it worked beautifully. Here it is. Are you ready?

My husband retores the table. (Okay, that wasn't THE brilliant idea, but he decided to start doing that, so it's very helpful! And I get points for raving over him in my blog, so it's a win-win!)

Actual brilliant idea: move the food to the leftover dishes (i.e. Tupperware) as soon as it's done, and then serve the food right out of the plasticware! Leftovers cleanup then only consists of putting the lid on the dish and placing it in the fridge!

And then, I took it a step further. After the food is relocated, take the dish the food was prepared in and immediately rinse and place in the dishwasher. Quicker, because the food is still warm and doesn't stick, so it doesn't take forever to get all the residue off. Or, if it was a particularily heavy meal, there's plenty of time to soak the dishes in the sink.

That means, when we get back from our walk, I don't have a kitchen that's a mess and dishes with food stuck all over them. The most I might have to do is scrub a pot or a pan, rinse and place in the dishwasher. BRILLIANT!

I'm sure people have been doing things like this since the beginning of time, but it really was the first time I thought of it!

Do YOU have any timesavers that are brilliant? I wanna hear them!