“Mise en place” is a French culinary term that means “everything in its place.” It’s why you’ll see chefs begin with bowls of pre-chopped and pre-measured ingredients–this allows them to work more efficiently.
When applied to work or productivity, “mise en place” can involve preparing your workspace, organizing tasks, and gathering necessary materials before you begin your workday.
How To Implement Mise en Place At Work
Here’s exactly how to prepare your day for max efficiency using the mise en place principle.
1. Prepare Your Workspace
Declutter. Remove any unnecessary items from your desk/work area to create a clean and organized base. You could make decluttering a part of your end-of-day routine, so you don’t have to worry about it in the morning.
Organize tools. Gather your tools, documents, or resources that you’ll need for this project. That might include your computer, notepads, pens, chargers, and reference materials. As a student, this would mean school supplies, study guides, and textbooks.
Long-term. Develop a good system to organize your digital space to minimize time spent searching around and to avoid losing documents. Use bookmarks, a folder structure, or a program like Notion or Todoist to keep yourself organized.
2. Plan Your Tasks
Planning out your tasks is another important aspect of applying mise en place to your work day.
Task list. Create a list of tasks you need to accomplish, then prioritize them based on importance and deadlines. You can use strategies like the 1-3-5 rule, Pareto Principle, or the Ivy Lee Method to determine the importance of each task.
Task batching. Collect similar tasks to tackle them in one go. This allows you to stay in a specific mindset for longer and avoid switching costs. Task batching in cooking looks like chopping and measuring all of your vegetables at once so you can work at the same station for longer.
Time blocking. Allocate specific times for deep work on each task, giving yourself a clear roadmap for the rest of your day.
3. Gather Resources
Your resources might be physical tools, but more likely, you’re working with digital materials. Prepare your documents and files, perhaps by creating a folder for that job or project, so you can have everything in one accessible place. This prevents interruptions to search for those materials later on.
Software and tools. Open your necessary applications. You might assign a separate desktop or monitor to each one to lessen time wasted clicking around for windows.
Consolidate software. At some point, you might give a good look at the tools that you use for work. Are any superfluous? Could you find one program that can replace several of the ones you use now? Reducing the number of platforms you swap between can be a big time save.
Automate tools. Automate repetitive tasks where you can, like using keyboard shortcuts or templates to save time and effort.
4. Minimize Distractions
Preparing for work by shutting out distractions is a great move.
Turn off unnecessary notifications from your phone and computer. Wrap up text convos so you’re not thinking about it while you work or ghosting someone by mistake.
Create an environment that supports focus, whether that means using noise-canceling headphones, a sound machine, or moving to a quieter place.
5. Mindset Preparation
Take a few moments to clear your mind and set intentions for the day to create mental readiness and headspace. This might involve a brief meditation, deep breathing, or reviewing your goals for the day to focus in.
Dump journal. Before you begin work, you can jot down anything that’s on your mind or that you’ve been worrying about. This can trick your brain into allowing you to “set aside” those unrelated concerns so you can lock in on the task at hand.
6. End-of-Day Routine
At the end of the day, review what worked and what didn’t. This can give you ideas for tweaking your mise en place for the next day, gradually improving your daily productivity. Build your best end-of-day routine to always be prepared for tomorrow.
Applying mise en place to your work routine helps create a smoother workflow, minimizes distractions, and allows you to focus entirely on the tasks at hand, like the little rat chef you are.
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