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How the loss of technology helps me

31 03 07 - 22:38 - Bookmark this post

When me and my girlfriend moved in together in 1999, the first thing we bought was a dishwasher. We hated doing the dishes, thought that we could use our time on something better than doing those dishes. We had the dishwasher untill 2005, when we moved to our new house. There was a built-in dishwasher and still functioning pretty good. Untill a few weeks back. It just stopped working. And I don't know why. I am not a mechanic, so I just looked at the thing very interesting, nudging a few hoses going in and out of that thing. And then started Googling for an answer. Which, ofcourse, I didn't get.

During those days we both were very busy with all sorts of projects so we didn't really have time to look into the dishwasher problem. And we  don't want to waste precious money on a mechanic to fix it for us. So I started doing the dishes by hand again. And after a few days I realized that doing the dishes by hand wasn't so bad at all

Better yet, those 10-15 minutes per day when I stand in the kitchen, it gives me time to look back on the day, reflect, think through some running projects and tasks and actually get things done. Just by doing the dishes. The Daily Saint also wrote about this in a recent article, where he discusses the various forms of multitasking.  The great thing with doing the dishes is you really don't have to think that hard about it. So it is a clear-multiple activity. I can do something mindless and stimulate the brain at once.

I am also an editor of a dutch weblogmagazine and I was struggling with an article. Finding the right tone of voice, structure. When I was doing the dishes tonight I had some time to think about the article and a few ideas came into my head which made the writing a lot easier. Also, during the same dishwashing-session, I came up with the idea for this article. I had read the article of The Daily Saint and while doing the dishes, I reminded myself of it.

The dishwasher is still not fixed. But we decided to have it removed from our kitchen and make more shelfspace for all the stuff we have in the kitchen. I decided to do the dishes from now on, my girlfriend still hates it, and with it I give myself time to think about more important stuff than those dishes. 

(Photo courtesy of Jono Rotten)

You’re a brave man to go without a dishwasher. I think it’s an appliance I couldn’t live without. But maybe that’s just my addiction to laziness.

I do agree that tasks like washing dishes are great for thinking about important things. And thanks for the link to The Daily Saint. What a great blog!
Andrew Flusche - 01 04 07 - 01:09

It’s great you got rid of the dishwasher. Did you know that research has shown that so called ‘boring’ tasks like doing the dishes, watering the plants,doing the laundry etc. are in fact very important, because if you skip them all you loose ‘regeneration’ time. So you get sooner burn-out and over-stressed! It also increses your creativity and joy in life.

I don’t agree with the way you use these tasks to do something else in the meantime. Your life’s quality will greatly increase if you JUST do the dishes, with all your attention.Then you will experience the real joy of living, of being in the present. The basic inbuild joy of real presence. Just being where you are, not as simple as it looks, as people practice in Zen and similar ‘activities’.
If you want to read more about this, there is a simple, but very nice book you can read: “Wherever you go, there you are”. It is written bij Jon Kabat Zinn. It can really change your life, if you practice it, because you will come home, meet your Spirit and are no longer dependent on circumstances for experiencing real happiness.

Jalada
Jalada - 01 04 07 - 14:26

I’d agree with Jalada here. You can use the time to develop mindfulness, which will serve you well when working in a GTD frame of mind. Mindfulness simply means non-judgmental, moment-by-moment awareness – of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. It develops concentration, and the faculty of witnessing – as opposed to being caught up in – mental activity. It’s all very “mind like water”.
Rob - 01 04 07 - 15:27

Did you think about water usage? I believe that doing dishes by hand, you use twice or even triple the amount of water, which obviously is not very environment-friendly :-)
Marcin - 01 04 07 - 20:28

I always thank of that! There are ways to use only a small amount of water, just because you do it with awareness and carefull attention. I don’t want everybody who is happy with his or her dishwasser to stop using it! You also can use the dishwasher with mindfullness: filling or emptying it without being somewhere else with your attention! Specially when there are a lot of dishes to be washed! Just be there where you are, totally with open, non-judging, undivided attention!
Jalada - 01 04 07 - 22:30

All, thanks again for the insightfull comments. I find it amusing that a subject as doing th dishes transfers to getting a mind like water and the amount of water usage :-)
But thanks for the insights and links to books and your own websites. Definitely something for me to dive into some more!
Frank Meeuwsen - 04 04 07 - 08:21

Doing dishes by hand uses much water, but less chemical products, even the dishwasher is an old one.

It’s doing the dishes that I found the meaning of life, when I was by my parents living. I hated doing this, but I totally agree that dishes-time let you thinking to another things, plus you have your hand in hot water, and your plates very clean.

(ps: excuse my bad english, I’m a french GTDer).
Mogore - 15 05 07 - 21:00