"Refrigerate X while cooking Y, then remove X from fridge as Y begins to [something]," and variants of that phrase are common scenarios in recipes. Your point is only valid for a portion of recipes, not all.

Let's also take into account how many ingredients you may need from the fridge when you plan ahead. Certain meals may require multiple trips to/from the basement (however far away that may be) depending on how many - and the size of - ingredients involved.

Also, what mjmj said, re:kids.

Very few recipes involve taking stuff from the freezer repeatedly however, most things will need to thaw in advance. Making ice cream in a freezer in the basement would suck, however.

Not having the fridge readily available in the kitchen would suck, though, so that only works if you have a dedicated freezer.

This is almost comedy for those with kids.

i have 3 kids. efficient meal preparation is quite important when your kids are hungry

You know people have limited capacity of hands and not everyone is cooking just for 1-2 people, right?

While this may be OK for single or couple without children, it's hard to imagine it for family with 4+ members.

exactly because of kids i am more frequently distracted, and for example just today i forgot one (optional) ingredient because i didn't collect all the ingredients at the start.

There have already been two replies pointing out why this is a bad idea, but, why is this a good idea? Why is learning to plan your meals better (for... some definition of that term, which doesn't appear to be the usual one) worthwhile?

I cook often and, to OP's point, cooking can go a lot smoother if I spend a few extra minutes up front gathering all of my ingredients and prepping my workstation/workflow. That said, I also recognize that there are practical reasons for not always including every single item during said prep and making a few trips to the fridge during the cook.

thank you. exactly that.