Step 4 = Hang up your dishcloth and change it often.
Many kitchens have an un-loved dishcloth which resides near the sink in a sad, soggy pile. If you sniff such a dishcloth you are likely to detect a nasty, bacteria-caused odour.
If this is the case, the short term answer (after a good bubbly rinse-through with washing up liquid) is to soak the dishcloth in warm water and Napisan for a couple of hours . Or cold-soak it (if it is a PLAIN WHITE dishcloth) in sterilising solution, such as Milton, for 15 minutes. Or you could cold-soak it in household bleach (following the instructions on the bottle), but that risks accidentally splashing bleach on your clothes, children, pets etc, plus the fumes given off are really unpleasant.
The longer term answer is to look after your dishcloth. So you probably need to think about a better way to store your in-use dishcloth. Mine is either pegged to the dish-drying basket on the draining board or hung from hooks on a rail by the sink. A similar stainless steel dish-drying basket to mine is available from John Lewis.
It is worth paying a bit extra for a dish-rack that won't rust, with high sides (so you can pile loads of clean washing-up in it if you can't be bothered to put it away immediately) and with rubber feet which are easy to wipe clean. Then simply peg the cloth on the side. Plus you can hook the sink plug and a soap-holding mini-basket on the side too.
Of course you could drape a cloth, spread out flat, over your sink tap to dry. For this to work, make sure that you train everyone else in your household to be kind to the hard-working dishcloth too.
It is a good idea to buy multiple dishcloths, and to keep them close to hand (i.e. near the sink - my spare cloths are kept in an open cloth bag hanging from a rack by the sink, so they are away from splashes, but visible). This means that as soon as the in-use cloth is showing signs of being grotty, it is easy to put a fresh cloth out to use. I prolong the life of the in-use dishcloth by dropping on tea tree oil and squeezing it through the cloth if I know it will be unused for a while (e.g. overnight or whilst everyone is out at work). My current favourite, Naissance Tea Tree Oil is in a glass bottle, from Amazon it comes in plastic-free delivery packaging and costs £15.99 for 2 x 100ml bottles. If you also buy 18mm atomiser spray caps from Amazon, then you'll only use a tiny amount of the tea tree oil each time you spray.
Please be kind to your hard-working dishcloth from now on!