I have my moments…sometimes, I just say F*ck it and rinse and leave them for the morning.
Then there are times, most of the time, I’ve gotta have my kitchen in order before my head its ‘My Pillow’…
It also depends if the dishwasher is full and ready to empty but I don’t want to empty AND do the dishes to put in the dishwasher…that is way too much at the end of the night.
I’ve gotten up in the middle of the night to clean up…must be the Virgo in me!
This is the ultimate evil. Recipe for disaster.
But my new jam is cleaning WHILE cooking. I’m not super strong a la minute, so I prep everything ahead of time, which leaves me with nothing to do from time-to-time. So I’ve been cleaning as much as possible during cooking, and it’s a dream.
This is me. I hate to empty the dishwasher. So I make my kids do it. If they haven’t gone to bed when I want to do the dishes, then they empty it, and I’ll load it up. If they are already in bed, then it has to wait until tomorrow. 
I have a hard and fast rule that, if we have guests, NO ONE is allowed to do anything towards cleaning the kitchen. If it’s just the two of us, anything dishwasher capable MIGHT get put in there. We’re retired and that kitchen will wait for me. It only takes our guests once to understand that this isn’t negotiable 
I cannot sleep knowing that there are dirty dishes in the sink or dirty pots on the stove. I wasn’t always this way, but I sure as hell am now.
I often get home well past 7pm, so if I cook anything, the odds are pretty good dishes will sit in the sink 'til at LEAST the next morning. Depending on if the dishwasher is full or not, they might get stuffed in there the next day, or (horrors!) they might just pile up until I get a chance to actually empty the damned thing and reload it.
Still, it’s INFINITELY better than when I was in Glendale and my place had no dishwasher. Doing dishes by hand is awful, boring, and since I hate it so much, I was terrible at it. I ran every dish I owned through the dishwasher in the new place just as soon as I could.
Then again, I live alone, and my cat doesn’t seem to give a damn, so whatevs.
Clean as you go, and save the big cooking projects for when the housekeeper is coming the next day. No dishes in the sink, ever. Next to it is okay, but not IN it.
If I make lunch for myself, sometimes. Otherwise, rinse and put in the dishwasher at most.
“There was no need to do any housework at all. After four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.”—Quentin Crisp
Clean as YOU go
Welcome to my life. lol.
Since I have to do the task by hand----on an average work/weekday my coffee mess (and b’fast items if I have time to have a little something before hitting the road) gets rinsed and left in the sink. If I eat something when I get home, those dishes are added to sink. I usually tackle all these items after I wind down (and have several glasses of wine)—so dishes are done before bed and more importantly my coffee set up is clean and ready to go for the morning.
If it’s the weekend and I have time to do lots of prep and cooking— if it’s a time consuming meal I’ll clean as I go. If I’m eating solo, then I will either do the dishes after eating or rinse and wash later. If I have company for dinner, it’s usually leave in sink until the next day unless I’m feeling unusually energetic.
If I had a dishwasher, then I would probably rinse and toss everything I could in there and leave pots n pans in the sink for later. ……and yes, emptying the dishwasher is the absolutely worst (besides folding clothes).
Always do the dishes after finishing eating.
Always do them by hand.
Yes! Have your u ever had someone get up and start bustling around and clearing the table while everyone is sitting around, enjoying the wine and relaxin? Wtf kind of passive-aggressive thing is that!?
You’re my guest, not a servant, sit down even if no one finds you interesting enough to talk to. 
Perfectly said. Gratefully it only happens once. I will admit when our adult kids are here a couple will clean the kitchen, generally the following morning.
‘and yes, emptying the dishwasher is the absolutely worst (besides folding clothes)’
Can I get a Hallelujah on that one?
I try to do as much as I can as I’m cooking the meal, which takes care of a lot of the heavy lifting for me. I think it depends on the situation. Generally, I don’t like to have quality time with guests disrupted by cleanup, but if it’s one of our fairly regular Sunday family dinners, I’m not so rigid. When we are at one of our parents’ places, cleanup after the meal has always seemed to be part of the routine, so it doesn’t bother me in those situations.
Side note. My wife is a wonderful woman, but she hates doing dishes, so I find my self at the sink more often than I’d like. Sometimes I think her idea of loading the dishwasher is giving me extra wine. 
Side note 2. We were at some friends’ house years ago for a bbq. The host couple was not getting along, and before we were even done eating, they were taking food off the table and putting it in ZipLoc bags. WTF?!?!
I don’t like my guests doing nothing in my home, except drinking all my booze, making yummy sounds of deliciousness on my food and not being a horse’s ass…
I would expect nothing less from you Ipse. .
i have the same rule when guests are in the house.
no guest is permitted to clean up.
period
I’m so glad to see that others have this rule. First time around it always seems like I’M the odd one. (Well, I am but…)
I can’t bring myself to leave the mess. I just hate waking up in the AM knowing that it is waiting for me. Food is put away and the dishwasher is loaded and run before I head to bed. I think it is a reaction because my mother would leave everything. I’m also compulsive about cleaning up as I work. My sister and I used to get stuck with the clean up when we were old enough. We would swear our mother could dirty every pan in the house boiling water. Ironically she used to preach cleaning as you worked but when she was cooking the kitchen would be a disaster area.