I'm super lazy when it comes to compost. There's a few things that I do depending on the time of year. Also, I'm only composting plant matter. Any meat or bones that my parents eat usually gets sent to the city compost.

In the winter I usually cover my garden beds with fallen leaves. I'll dig up a small area, chuck a bowl of food waste in that area and cover it up with leaves again. When it gets warm in the spring, the leaves and food waste break down really quickly.

In the spring I sort of scatter the food waste on top of the soil because I'm lazy. If nothing is planted, I might dig up a hole and bury the food waste there.

If the garden is established, I'll have a few dumping spots in the garden and rotate between each spots so they have a chance to break down. I'll also put layers of garden trimmings on top so the food waste is covered and broken down a little quicker, or so it seems to me.

I haven't had any issues with smells or wild animals, yet. Between that and the free mushroom mulch substrate from the mushroom farm, my gardens do quite well each year.