alt Hacker NewsHonestly the big reason why I use my dishwasher is that all the dishes would not fit in my drying rack. I'm not very convinced the process of me rinsing and scraping my pans before they go in the dishwasher is any faster than when I lived in apartments when I handwashed everything. Maybe my dishwasher sucks too, but I mean it doesn't hold a candle to the sort of jobs on my pans that require good old fashion baking soda paste and elbow grease. I'm still slaving with this thing. It's picking the low hanging fruit for me in other words.
I feel similar about my robot vacuum. It actually takes a surprising amount of labor facilitating the damn thing. I have to walk through the house and basically vacuum proof it so it doesn't eat various cords, rugs, lifting chairs up and putting them someplace so it can get under, etc. Not sure its really a labor save to when I was just brooming the entire apartment in 20 mins and not having to move anything around due to reach of the broom and it not having a tendency to eat things. Hand vacuum I can be more carefull too about the fringed edges of rugs and don't have to fold them over themselves.
I still do it because I already bought it mostly.
The trick is dialing the things in properly once, and then reaping the benefits over and over again.
e.g., my home is always vacuum-proofed. It automatically runs through all rooms except for the bedroom at night, finishing just before my alarm clock rings, then vacuuming the bedroom an hour after the last person's alarm clock has rung.
This way I never actually notice it, but the home is always perfectly clean as if by magic.
Similarly, if you use separate dishwasher detergent, antisurfactant and salt, and properly dial in your water hardness, it'll be able to clean everything no matter how dirty the dishes are. Including dried-on tomato sauce. Just put the dishes in, and they'll be clean the next day.
Of course it takes a bit of effort to set this up, but then it just works for a long time.
Similarly, I'm a big fan of handwriting software with care & focus on quality, which takes a bit longer at first, but then allows you to trust the software to continue running for years to come.