What Your Sink Says About Your Personality

Your home says a lot about your personality. The decor you choose, the items you display, and the way you present it to others can speak volumes. You are where you live.

Beyond interior decorating, the way you manage mundane chores can also offer insights into what type of person you are. According to HuffPost, there are two groups based on dishwashing habits — those who let the dishes soak and those who tackle them as they come. Soakers and scrubbers have different priorities, personalities, and processes for managing tasks.

Cleaning the Dishes Right Away vs Clutterblindness
Anita Chlipala, a family therapist, tells HuffPost that those who clean dishes right away, rather than allowing them to pile up, need order and cleanliness in order to unwind and see a lot of dishes as “clutter everywhere.” Chlipala says what they’re really thinking is “I want to relax, I feel at peace when my home is clean. Having a sense of order is important to me.” This behavior may have also been learned in childhood. For example, some might have grown up in a home where only after dishes were scrubbed could the family then relax and enjoy the night together.

By contrast, those who are okay with letting the chore pile up may have a “relax-first” mindset and may see other matters as more important than getting household chores done at a specific time. Practicality may also play a role. “I know people who have to clear their sink right away, but they have dishwashers,” Los Angeles-based comedian and actor Becca Bastos, says. Finally, those who let their dishes soak and pile up may be “clutterblind,” and would be unbothered by the sight.

Efficient, Not Lazy
Clutterblindness isn’t synonymous with laziness. VegOut Magazine explains that if you let the dish pile grow it doesn’t mean you’re unmotivated. By contrast, you might just have a different set of priorities and prefer efficiency over appearances.

Leaving dishes to soak gives you the opportunity to “batch-wash” dishes. Instead of interrupting work, play, social gatherings, or family meals to wash a few dishes as they come, you’re comfortable waiting to do it all at once — a faster and more efficient way to manage the chore workflow. This allows you to stay present and focused, without worrying about the rapidly growing pile in the sink.

Dishwashing “procrastinators” may also be perfectionists who prefer to “reset” the entire kitchen at once to a sparkling clean state rather than managing the cleanup one utensil at a time.

Build a Habit of Washing Dishes
Unfortunately, the time-consuming sink-reset can get pushed off again and again, and as the dishes pile up, the kitchen becomes more unmanageable. Dish-pilers can employ various strategies to prevent this and manage the workload in an efficient way.

For example, even if you want to let dishes soak and batch-wash them, schedule a short kitchen reset daily, and a bigger one once a week.

You can also ritualize cleanups. An alarm, getting started at the same time each day, and putting on the same playlist can go a long way. Use the same series of steps every time you complete your daily wash, and ditch perfectionism — because good enough now is still better than not done at all.

Communicate and Compromise
Regardless of whichever dishwashing style you have, it’s important to communicate with those you live with as dishwashing differences can create friction in a relationship, HuffPost reports.

“Dishes in the sink is rarely about dishes in the sink,” Justin Dodson, a therapist, tells HuffPost, “Although this concern seems like a basic task, couples are typically fighting about what dishes in the sink represent,” Dodson adds.

It’s important for both partners to understand that the way mundane chores are approached is linked to personality, and not make judgments. Instead, they should take the time to talk about chore management and come up with a working solution.

At the end of the day, there’s no “right” way to handle the dishes — only what works best for you and your household. Whether you scrub as you go or save it all for a satisfying reset, understanding your style and communicating with the ones you live with, can help keep your workload and your relationships as fresh as your kitchen counters.