Be Efficient
I made hamburgers for dinner last night, and there's nothing like sauteed onions on that burger. Before I did anything else in the kitchen, I started the onion saute. A good sauteed onion takes around 45 minutes, so the first and last things I did in dinner prep involved the onion. The smell of the slow-cooking onion was amazing, and it took almost no active time. While the onion was cooking I put away the clean dishes, prepped the other burger toppings, and grilled the burgers. By the time it was all done, the onions were brown and delicious.
Clean As You Go
I've recently started cleaning my messes as I make them, rather than piling everything in the sink to take care of later. This makes such a huge difference!
Empty The Dishwasher
This is something I like to do at the beginning of my evening's cooking. I get something started on the stove, then empty the dishes so I can just add dirty dishes as I continue cooking.
Get Out!
By cleaning in the few minutes here and there you have between recipe steps, it's much easier to get out of the kitchen in a reasonable amount of time. A quick wipe-down of the stove and counters, if done daily, takes only a minute or two, allowing you to get out of the kitchen with more time to spend doing what you want to do.
