A sharp chef’s knife will save you time, frustration, and possibly even fingers.You don’t need a lot of gadgets to cook at home, but investing in a few basics will go a long way in making cooking easier and far more pleasant.

Invest in the right tools

You don’t have to go from getting takeaway for 90% of your meals to cooking 90% of your meals at home. It’s ok to start by committing to cooking just once a week. If you find you can handle one night, maybe add a second. The routine you’ll actually maintain beats the perfect routine every time.

Be realistic

You will eat something. The question is whether it’s going to be something you intentionally planned to eat, or the closest, easiest option.Repeat often. You don’t get bonus points for complexity or variety. The goal isn’t to be Martha Stewart. Don’t be afraid to repeat meals often, especially when you’re just getting into the habit of home-cooking.

Make a plan and keep it simple

A cluttered fridge filled with foodstuffs in various stages of rot makes it harder to find what you need which in turn makes it harder to start cooking.Just set a timer for ten minutes, go through your fridge, get rid of anything that’s going bad, tidy up what’s left, and remind yourself what you need to use up soon.

Declutter your fridge weekly

Fast food and ready-to-eat dinners may have freed up a significant amount of our time, but they also started an epidemic of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and a slew of other chronic health issues which make it harder to enjoy those extra hours. Convenience is slowly killing us. The less time we spend cooking at home, the worse our diets become. We can intermittent fast and count calories, but if we want to eat healthier we can’t escape the fact that we have to make time for cooking.

The Bad Side Of Convenience

The more you make a recipe, the easier it will become and the less mental resistance you’ll feel when you think about making it. Identify 3-5 recipes that are fast to make (30 min or less), relatively healthy, and reasonably edible. Fall back on these recipes as often as you need.

Have 3-5 go-to recipes

When taking on new endeavors we often skip a critical first step: figuring out how we’ll make time for them. To make room for cooking, you’ll need to say no to other things. Time block meal prep on your calendar and keep that appointment with yourself.

Schedule it so it happens

You can motivate yourself to start cooking by putting on your favorite podcast or an audiobook.Psychologists call this strategy temptation bundling – pairing a thing you like to do with a thing you don’t like to do. It can be a powerful way to jump-start any habit.

Motivate yourself with temptation bundling

If it’s your goal to cook more at home, here are the key things that helped me build and stick with a cook-at-home routine for ~85% of my weekly meals.