I truly think a secret to enjoying cooking is knowing that the joy of cooking actually starts before you pick up your knife. These are the habits I do ~1x per week that I swear by to make cooking feel effortless and fun — none of which involve actual cooking.

my weekly kitchen routines

kitchen laundry

I keep a dedicated bin under my sink for kitchen towels, cloth napkins, and cleaning rags and wash them all together 1x. a week. Beginning a new week with a full drawer of clean towels and napkins – it helps! A perk of this habit is paper towels are no longer an everyday part of my standard kitchen because I’ve created a habit and system that works because I always have clean towels.

put every single thing away

Daily, I run the dishwasher at night and empty it in the morning so I can load throughout the day. I’m talking that lingering stuff throughout the week… the water bottles that are air drying, pots and pans that might be clean or need to be scrubbed. Do you feel like everything is out all the time? At least once a week I take as long as it takes to clean and 100% put everything away. Empty dishwasher, everything is at home.

This is one of the most impactful because I know that I like cooking when I step into kitchens that are ready to be cooked in. It is helpful and more inspiring to start from that baseline versus feeling like you’re creating more dish on top of dishes you haven’t gotten to yet. Put everything away so you can handle it and don’t feel behind!

think about future me

Just this past Sunday I took some extra time to organize our snacks/pantry and top shelf of the fridge. This week in particular, as are most, is pretty nuts so I wanted to ensure that monday, tuesday, wednesday, etc. me were set up to thrive. A part of this habit is actively going through the fridge/freezer/pantry and using or tossing old expired food and bringing what I want to use to the front, almost like a grocery store would circulate their stock.

This can also look like cooking a batch of quinoa or roasting a bunch of japanese sweet potatoes that you don’t plan to eat until tomorrow. Just moving things along to make it more convenient on the me who steps in here tomorrow morning or at the end of a long day!

i make it nice

lol I MADE IT NICE LIKE DORINDA! I make it nice for me. I at least once at week, in my sweep of getting things to baseline, I add fresh flowers to a vase, citrus in a different bowl, or bring some art from another room to bring it new life. Beyond the way I set up my kitchen I do think that having this intention around your space and environment you cook in is what inspires you to step into it and enjoy it. You don’t have to spend money to do this!

I’ve met many women who think “it’s just me so I don’t cook for one” or “it’s not worth it” as they stand over the kitchen sink eating dinner on a paper plate. Your responsibility with the gift of another day to enjoy your food and space IS to enjoy your food and space. I enjoy my space more when it’s clean so I put on the rubber gloves and clean the counters, stove, etc. because I truly see it as self-care.

set it up like it’s for someone else

I set the kitchen up in our house for more than just me. I live with my husband, and with what I know about behavior science and making things easier on myself, he is also my muse. He suffers from a diagnosis called can’t see eyes, so I make it very easy for us all lol but that’s kinda the point.

If someone who has never been in your kitchen before stepped into it, would they be able to easily cook a meal? Sometimes we spend too much brain space on accessing tools or remembering where things are so every week I do take a minute to think logistically. How can I make this more efficient?

Filling up my salt mills and making sure I have olive oil next to the stove is one thing, it’s also having the kitchen utensils nicely organized and in the drawer NEXT to the stove. The less thinking you have to do in the moment comes from having a space that is set up for you to step into and thrive!

produce & inventory check in

Pretty much any time I’m in the kitchen I’m checking in on produce. How much time do these avocados have? These berries are getting close to the end!

If that happens and I don’t have time to do anything, I’ll throw most items into the freezer. Bananas, fruit, greens that might go bad before I can eat.

I also am noting what staples are running low, maybe I have my phone out to take note in my grocery list.

why these habits matter

When you step into a kitchen that’s ready for you – clean, organized, and stocked with what you need – cooking becomes less about struggling through a chore and more about creating something wonderful. These habits technically are about maintaining a space; but they’re really about creating an environment where cooking feels natural and enjoyable.

want more of this?

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