Previous: Race issues

My wife thinks I take too long to wash the dishes. I don't know about that. (Privately, at least—publicly, of course, she's right.)

I'm not really in a hurry to get done and do whatever is next, which is typically nothing of substance anyway. What's the rush? If I had something else to do, I'm perfectly capable of leaving the dishes alone and giving them the freedom to wash themselves.

Washing dishes takes as long as it takes. I do good work. More importantly, it's when I listen to podcasts—or not, sometimes it's better to listen to nothing and think nothing, or think about the day and dissect decisions made at work and really commit to coming to no conclusions about it and doing nothing. The time in my head can be productive, or useless, or neither, or both. It doesn't matter. The time goes plate by glass by fork.

If I start to rush, it becomes work. It becomes effort. If I go slow, or at whatever speed comes naturally without thinking about it, I can sneak up on it and start washing before I can think about it, before I can classify it as work or not work.

I don't want to optimize everything—or anything, sometimes. Sometimes I want to turn off the race and float in a pool of bubbles. And if a plate happens to get cleaned, well, OK.