I used to cook as if dinner were a deploy: mise en place as a checklist, heat as a deadline, plating as a release. It made weeknights efficient and slightly joyless.
Slowing down did not mean restaurant technique. It meant putting the radio on, cutting onions without racing the pan, and accepting that beans from a pot taste better than beans from a rush.
The metric I use now is whether I would still want to eat this if nobody else was coming over. If the answer is no, the recipe is performing.