“Mise En Place” and Top Chefs
Playing the Long Game
Skilled chefs have much to teach us about how to organize and prepare ourselves to perform in almost every area of life. On a daily basis, they perform in a high pressure environment, characterized by short deadlines and high customer expectations. They must deliver a range of consistently quality dishes in minutes.
To survive and thrive, top chefs systematize their workflow. Creativity goes into the recipes, but top chefs don’t wing it when it comes to professional cooking. Instead, they rely on their customized version of “mise en place.”
What Is Mise En Place?
“Mise en place” is a French culinary term, which translates to “everything in its place.” The core idea is to gather and organize the ingredients and resources needed to prepare a dish. In a broader sense, mise en place is a detailed workflow system for delivering high quality restaurant food (also see the definition on Wikipedia).
Mise en place can be as mundane as a diagram or checklist. Or, it could be as sublime as a professional philosophy. For a top chef, it is their minutely choreographed system for the consistent preparation and delivery of world class food under intense time pressure.
Do You Already Practice Mise En Place?
Mise en place may sound like an idea that has no relevance to everyday life beyond a professional kitchen, but most of us practice it already in different ways. When you get home, do you put your car keys in the same place to avoid searching for them when you get ready to leave? That’s mise en place. Do you use a checklist when you do your grocery shopping? That’s mise en place.
Circumstances forced my wife and I to practice more mise en place when we made our most recent move. The new home was lovely but had far less storage area. The basement, where we could pile and hide almost unlimited stuff, had vanished.
Our new motto became “everything has a place and everything gets stored in its place.” We embraced this principle wholeheartedly. Maybe this space constraint was a good thing? Now we love the simplicity and clean look of our home.
What’s In Mise En Place For You?
Consistently practice a few simple mise en place concepts, and you will experience better outcomes, a greater sense of control, and more peace of mind. This is not a small claim, but my conviction that it is true is total.
Start by introducing three core concepts for organizing, planning, and applying standards for quality:
1. Embrace the “Everything In Its Place” Principle. Accept that life’s too short to fumble around looking for your car keys or anything else. Then, like a top chef would in their professional kitchen, find a place in your home for every possession and start returning things to their place when not in use. Begin with objects you use daily. It may feel daunting at first, but my prediction is that this practice will become far more satisfying than you anticipated.
2. Practice the Planning Your Day Principle. Top chefs plan in detail. Commit to taking 30 minutes early in the morning (or during the previous evening) to plan your day. Dan Charnas, the author of Everything in Its Place, calls this doing a “daily meeze”.
My “daily meeze” is simple. I list 3–5 tasks that I feel are essential to accomplish for the day to be fulfilling. Then, I time block when I plan to work on the tasks. Only if necessary, I add tasks as the day goes on. Time management wizards may not be impressed with my “daily meeze,” but it works for me.
3. Commit to Quality Standards. The best chefs enforce exacting mise en place standards for the delivery of food and service. Standards are at the heart of all systems for manifesting consistently desirable results. Tony Robbins says that “Any time you sincerely want to make a change, the first thing you must do is to raise your standards.” And James Clear believes that “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
Standards are ubiquitous in our lives. Call it your quality control. We are conscious of some, but many are implicit. When I make the bed in the morning, I’m performing against a standard that could be fairly described as “good enough.” In other select areas, my aspirations are higher.
Dissatisfied with your outcomes in an area of your life? Then reflect in depth on your quality standards for that activity. You may need to articulate your standards first, if you’ve never given it much thought. I’m not one for beating myself or others up mentally. But if something important isn’t working well, it’s time to get honest with yourself.
Articulate a few simple but critical standards for the relevant area. Write them down, commit and work toward them. Stand back and observe how your outcomes improve. It sounds simple, but it is a powerful personal effectiveness strategy.
Your mise en place, now?
You stand ready on the beach.
Prepared to jump waves.
Let me know in the comments how applying these simple mise en place principles and concepts has worked for you.
You may also enjoy reading:
Limiting Scope to Declutter Your Home | by Jaylen Kade | Small Steps | Feb, 2024 | Medium
