In a busy kitchen, it's easy to simply reach for the nearest knife closest to hand, but the reality is that it can dull your blades. For example, it's important to use a proper cleaver or butchers knife for cutting joints, a boning knife for de-boning meat, and carving knives for carving cooked meat. Specific knives are made to unique tolerances given the job they're designed for - so using your general purpose chef's knife for hacking through a thick joint may end up dulling the blade, for example.

It's important to regularly sharpen and hone your blades with knife sharpeners - these processes both make the blade edge sharper and remove any imperfections in the blade surface respectively. It's essential, however, that you don't over-sharpen your blade as you can begin to eat away at the material. Kitchen knives should be sharpened on a regular basis, but take care to avoid doing so excessively. If you have any doubts, it may be worth getting a specialist to sharpen them for you.