It was Saturday morning and I was doing some extra clean-up from dinner the night before. Usually, we put foil down when melting cheese on nachos but forgot this time. As a result, my son did the after dinner dishes and filled this pan with water to ‘soak’.

When I cook, I hate to have a dirty and cluttered counter. So, I was going to make breakfast because I had a busy day planned but there were a few things on the counter from the night before. This pan being one of them.

We have a loose rule in the house that the cook doesn’t do the dishes. That typically means the kids are responsible for the dishes. Sometimes, the other non-cook spouse jumps in as well. When my boys do the dishes, one loads the dishwasher and the other does the hand wash dishes. They have a famous stalling tactic of letting stubborn, stuck on food residue soak overnight.

The most common cooking vessel that gets ‘the soak’ is the crock pot. In fact, there have been a number of times that the crock sits in the sink for several days because there is still stuff stuck on the surface. With the sun shining through the window I couldn’t shake the thought that soaking only takes you so far. Sometimes, the short cut has done all that it can do. You just have to put in the work to get that dish clean.

As I have recently mentioned, I discovered that Life Below Zero has all the seasons on Disney Plus. During my free time like while cooking, I have the show on in the background as I run through the recent seasons that I have not seen. A constant theme in the dialog is how much work needs to be done. Unlike clean dishes, their work is life dependent.

In today’s world of building science and modern building materials (as well as more moderate climate), people that heat with wood go through three to six cords of wood for a year. In some cases with crude cabins and primitive buildings, they are using a cord of wood a week. Let’s not forget that heating season is nine months a year and many are also cooking with a woodstove.

For those of you that don’t speak wood heating, a cord is 4′ x 4′ x 8′. A typical stove length log is sixteen inches. To paint a visual picture, a cord would be three rows that are eight feet long and four feet high. And, that is per week. With temperatures as low as fifty degrees below zero (F) you really cannot afford to not put in the work.

Even though I am writing this, I feel like I sometimes fall into this trap. That is avoiding the work because I don’t want to do it. I think about even things I love to do like deer hunting. One of the reasons that I go once per season and rarely get a deer is because I don’t put in the work. I have a freezer full of beef, a closet full of clothes and money to buy any tools that I might need (if I need any more tools).

I love it. I am excited at the thought of going deer hunting. But when it comes right down to busting brush, getting rained on, sweating profusely, etc. I really don’t want to do it. If I have that much trouble with activities that I purportedly love, think about the motivation to do something that I don’t.

We are all human and have our preferences and desires. I find that a lot of the time, if I decide that I am going to do something, then that is what happens. The psychological barrier of not wanting to do something is much, much stronger than the time it takes to do the task. While I don’t have concrete evidence, I suspect that those of us that are willing bust through those barriers rather than being stopped are more successful in life.

I have found that through the years some things are best tackled first or at least early. For instance, the cheese grater washes infinitely easier if it goes from use to the sink. Even if you do not scrub it but keep it wet, it makes a huge difference in effort as well. If it sits on the counter until after dinner, it is significantly more difficult and time consuming to wash.

If I get a chance, I will wash the grater while I am making dinner. This is not because I want credit for less mess but I consider it a service to whomever is washing the dishes. If I can do it in a third of the time because cheese is not stuck onto a difficult to clean surface, I should do that as a courteous person in the kitchen. It is a variation of the golden rule.

End Your Programming Routine: I think that it is A-OK to let the pan soak. But, the next morning it is time to put in the work and get it clean. We can’t be so work adverse that we don’t put our firewood up or that metal rusts into pieces sitting in the sink waiting to get loosened up. Hard things can be character building as well. At the very least it helps to gauge when we have gotten all that we can from the shortcut or helper technique. Hard work often gives us the motivation to try and invent a better or easier way for next time.