My mother, brother and I recently found out that all of us count dishes as we wash them. My mom and I count a lot: we count items when we pull them out of the washer, we count how many things we have, we count our steps if there's a routine of walking a certain path. So we count the dishes as we go, because it's nice to know, "I've started out with twelve dishes to wash and now I only have two left."
-Rayna
Photos and text from the forthcoming book "Cleaning: People Talk About Housework"