I found a hack for #1 (I'm an architect) - I fit houses with 2 dishwashers side by side. You simply move dishes from one to the other, and start it when it's full. Think of the dishwasher as a robotic closet that automatically washes your dishes.
I don’t care how many downvotes this get but how lazy can one person be.
Also I found even a better way and that is not to use the dishwasher at all besides after a dinner party or a large cooking session during the weekend.
I live with my partner and it doesn’t take more than 10min to do the dishes at the end of each day without using a dishwasher.
I downvoted but just to answer your question: INFINITY. INFINITY LAZY is the goal. Absolutely zero milliseconds worth of mindless toils would be my ideal number in life. That is the spec.
She CAN NOT see the benefit of having wireless bulbs controlled by your phone for this purpose. Apparently this is "too lazy".
TOO LAZY. IS THAT A THING?!
(And in physical life, if one overdoes it with laziness, they can get from obese to pressure ulcers)
And as for diminishing returns, I would argue that it is not. With proper configuration you can automate the entire morning routine; Lights up with your alarm, off when you leave the house, on when you arrive home, off when you go to bed. Just minor conveniences that make life more pleasurable.
Yes. And while that is nice to have, it's by no means as useful as "automatic clothes folding". A dimmer takes like 5 seconds to dim when you put on a movie -- whereas clothes folding takes up to tens of minutes.
Laziness is a crappy mental setup for long term relationships, for parenting, heck even for work (I get some brilliant engineering work comes from laziness but it's a bit different type, and applied only sporadically).
In fact, some mindless work can be a sort of meditation.
Which is true, if I was to walk from Land's End to John O Groats then I would need a lot of food for that plus the overnight stays in guest houses would not be that green as the sheets would be changed daily rather weekly-ish.
A friend of mine is not capable of washing dishes unless there is a scorching hot tap at full beam running straight to the plughole for rinsing purposes, no hand basin is used and the plug is nowhere to be seen. No draining board support is allowed to spoil the kitchen aesthetic and anything washed has to be dried with those paper towels you just use once and throw in the bin.
Fortunately for people like my friend there are dishwashing machines. Since they do have a machine and it has to be put on anyway, there is therefore no harm in my friend using a different cup everytime he wants a cup of tea. Therefore there will be a good dozen mugs and glasses in there by the time the machine goes on.
Undoubtedly the dishwasher definitely makes sense and is more economical now!!!
Meanwhile I just make do with the same cup that I wash each time I need it, a quick rinse, usually without chemicals. Come main meal time I also manage to wash as I cook so there is only the plates and a couple of pans to wash at the end. Of course you could put the dishwasher on for that or wonder what happens if you have a vast Mormon family, but it does not have to be the case that the dishwasher is greener.
Not sure it is as green as "have some predetermined amount of water at the ready and wash dishes with it", as is the case in much of the developing world (and could be an alternative for the developed world too if environmental costs were a concern).
Plus the cost of water+electricity to develop, pack, transport, etc a dishwasher could be big too.
Of course it could be premature optimization -- if 99.99% of the water is wasted in other uses.
Yards. (At least in my part of the country, you have to water them fairly heavily.)
I never seem to be able to wring rags/sponges out well enough to stop them from quickly getting smelly. I would expect spectacular bacterial growth on a soft surface periodically refreshed with water and nutrients, and that seems to be exactly what happens. My parents swear by this approach but they always have a stinky sink and a gross scrubbing sponge/cloth. Do you have a better technique or do you just learn to be one with the bacteria-ball :-) ?
As for soap, dish soap leave my hands feeling so dry and awful that it takes regular application of hand cream over days before picking up paper, touching fuzzy fabric, and typing no longer bring immediate physical discomfort. Gloves solve the problem, but putting on + taking off gloves to scrub a single dish has poor time economy. Again, do you have a better technique or do you just live with it?