I try to let conversations progress naturally after an introduction or one manual interaction. I do this in an attempt to let their traits and mood dictate the chat options they use. Hopefully this will get even better with traits starting to be improved.
I do work tasks or work on skills for promotions and aspiration goals, but I let Whims influence what sims do if they have nothing planned.
If I'm manually starting a cooking interaction I choose a recipe I have all, or at least some, of the ingredients for as this is how I'd cook IRL (prioritise what I can make over something I would have to adapt or go shopping for). If I don't have the ingredients, I make one of the no-listed-ingredients dishes (I guess they use store cupboard basics) such as Mac & Cheese. I always cook the most economical size and live off of leftovers to save time (unless the sim is a chef and needs to cook for daily tasks).
I do sell some things from the inventory if they have an appropriate sell interactions (such as "Sell to Publication" for cash/fame on photos). You can sell them via Plopsy, but I'm not sure if you get fame. You do get more cash, but can only list 3 at a time and it takes forever.
When I play roationally I like to set up retail stores for craftables and furnishings (especially unlockables) so that all my sims have access to all the things without being cheaty and using bb.ignoregameplayunlocksentitlement or bb.showhiddenobjects for unlocks/collectibles respectively. This can take time to set up though. Until sims can buy things via shops, they can still access them in the catalogue, but only the things that aren't locked/hidden. Once they are available in a shop, they have to go buy it with the inflated retail mark-up, and in the process create profit for the retail owner households. With Seasons you can gift books (or copies) and other craftables to retail owner sims so they can add them to their stock, which means less families need to own or buy stores to display everything without cheats and with the creator's name intact.
Similarly with restaurants, I like them to be owned if possible, so a family profits when sims eat out.
I make sims into museum/gallery patrons by changing the lot to retail, purchasing it, adding valuable display items/collections and reselling it before changing it back to a museum.
