You’d think that when your home office is upstairs from your kitchen, you could take advantage of the times you work remotely and slide cooking tasks more or less seamlessly into your day.

I love the idea of starting a pot of beans midmorning, for instance, and knowing they’ll be ready just in time for lunch. But most days that remains just an idea, because I’m too busy hopping among emails, Slacks, invoices, pitches, recipes, stories, meetings and more to add one more thing to the mix. I don’t usually start thinking about what to make for lunch until my stomach growls and my husband starts asking questions.