I use a thick crockery dinner plate instead of those wimpy thin lids.
Also, if your Crock-Pot doesn’t have a timer, get one of thosetimers you can plug into the outletand plug the Crock-Pot into that. Then you can set it to turn on two hours after you leave, and cut the cook time a little bit.
Choose the right meat for the Crock-Pot. Chicken breasts? Hell nooooooo! Not nearly enough fat or connective tissue. Unless you’re home to pull it out in time, it will dry out, even sitting there in liquid, no matter what kind of lid you use. You want leg quarters if you want chicken. Pork shoulder, not pork tenderloin. Top round, not prime rib. Generally, the cheaper and tougher a meat, the better for the Crock-Pot.
Do you have weekends free? A big batch of chili this weekend, a soup next weekend, a lasagne the weekend after that…make things in big batches and portion them into single serves to reheat during the week. After two months, you’ll have a good rotation so you can eat out of the freezer without repeating anything in a week. Before you leave for work, pull something from the freezer and stick it into the fridge to defrost. A salad, a bowl of Whatever and some nuked veggies make a quick meal.
Like Miss Woodhouse says, keep bowls or ziploc baggies of chopped onions, sliced bell peppers, julienned carrots - whatever your most common veggies are - in the fridge so your prep work is done for you.
(I can’t get organized or energetic enough for true OAMC, but I do steal what works for me.)