If you had a video call with me, if you happened to see my videos, or if you visited my flat, odds are that a question came up to your mind. The same question that I’ve been asked at least 8 times (and counting) over these past years: “How do you keep your kitchen so clean?” With a possible follow up of “Do you even cook?” or “Have you just moved in?”, amongst others.

I’m of the opinion that once you get asked multiple times the same question, then it’s time to document it and have it available for the next person.

It’s time to address it.

Behind the scenes

This is how my kitchen stand looks on an average work day. I didn’t prop it up for the picture.

In case you are wondering, the container in the center is soaking buckwheat groats, which after a day of soaking I grind, mix condiments and sometimes small vegetables, put in the oven, resulting in a delicious loaf of buckwheat bread that I use as a replacement for bread. I highly recommend it.

That should answer the question that yes, I do cook.

Why

There are 3 reasons why my kitchen looks virtually the same, every time.

1. I like to have my environment organized and free of clutter and distractions. I’ve had a long, conscious effort to reduce clutter and inconsequential distractions from my life, stemming from an experience that I might write about in a later day.

• The positive ramifications of consistently living and being surrounded by an environment and stimulus of objects that really matter, are more than I could ever describe in words.
• It’s a small present for my future self: when I cook, do something in the kitchen, or at home, I have a deeply ingrained habit of sorting and cleaning everything out before moving to the next thing. That way, my full energy can be allocated and focused towards a single place.
• This goes beyond the physical realm. On both my personal and work laptop it is rare to have more than 3 browser windows open, each one often having less than 10 tabs. Whenever those numbers temporarily increase, I document their state, close them down, and arrive at a clean state again. Essentially using documentation as a checkpoint mechanism
• There are other examples of this. In case you follow Tech ingredients, you’ll notice that their laboratory and space is quite neat, regardless of the outstanding breadth of experiments done in the channel. I found it amusing that some years ago they were once asked by some viewers “how do they keep their lab so clean”, to which the main presenter replied that “we are not hiding anything, we just take care to tidy and store the components we are not working on” (paraphrased).

1. The rest of the utensils are away from camera sight. When I am having a meeting or sharing my thoughts via video, I want to get things done and not have my mind occupied with non-consequential thoughts such as “Oh, my background looks a bit a messy. That piece looks out place. I wonder how that looks for someone else”, nor do I want to distract my interlocutors with something irrelevant in the background. There are video filters which blur out the background, but I don’t like the way they look, not do I want to have yet another moving component in my workflow that might (or might not) work. If my background is relatively the same and neutral, then I don’t have to worry about it, and can focus my energies on the the things that really matter.
2. Apart from my weekly buckwheat bread, I only cook at weekends, since I am fortunate enough to often cook for pleasure, rather than necessity. The rest of the week I either get to have my meals at the office, or through Planty, a plant based clean food subscription.