What are some methods?

Answer 1

Since a "method" is any particular way(s) of doing a particular action. So, there are many ways that can be called "methods". Let's use a simple example, washing dishes by hand.

1. Most families realized long ago that to conserve hot water (which often needed boiled even in the early 1900s), they should not wash greasy pots and pans before glassware. *Greasy includes buttery.
2. In fact, families found that washing plastics, glassware, pottery, or silverware after greasy pots and pans left behind a coating of greasiness on everything else.
3. Also, baked on foods made the water dirtier, much faster.
4. So women developed "methods" for handwashing their dishes.
5. First, they washed drinking glasses; the hot soapy water made the glass sparkle.
6. Second came heavier glassware; the least used came first.
7. Third came silverware used to eat with since people don't leave excess food there.
8. Fourth, plates / platters IF cleaned off well and if NO greasiness. *
9. Women often changed the water here.
10. Fifth, cooking utensils, plates and other items with greasiness.
11. Last, a single item or two that needed "soaked" in water.

This "method" meant getting the most use out of one sink or tub of water and soap.

The SAME sort of "method" was used about taking baths, EXCEPT instead of going by who was cleanest, it went by who was oldest even if a father was grimy and dirty from working all day.

Though it seems a scientific method would be far different, the basic idea is the same:: a specific set of steps used repeatedly because those steps were found to be the most useful, conserved energy or resources, and were "beneficial". (Though for bathwater, the littlest kid who came last didn't like the dirty water!)