Officially, it’s the first day of Fall. Here in #Ojai, the morning was a bit cooler as I rode my bike a few miles to the coffee shop for our regular “morning office meeting.” On my way home, I came up with this question for you:
Do you have everything in its place?
As the season is changing, and new opportunities are arising, Jodi and I are looking at our routines, our habits, and our rhythm in life AND at work. This is nothing new…
Way back in 1997, I attended a workshop called, “Managing Actions and Projects” by a guy named David Allen. (Four years later he would jump to fame with his book, Getting Things done!) That workshop came at a time during which I was reading Stephen Covey, Julie Morgenstern, Tom Peters and more. I really, really, REALLY wanted to figure it all out. That is, how could I get it all done AND have work/life balance.
Just this week, I started watching an incredible show, a Netflix original, titled, “Chef’s Table.” Watching an episode, I was reminded of something I was taught as a child. I remember working in my parent’s restaurant in Lagunitas, California called, “Le Printemps;” my step-dad taught me to “never put fire to pan until everything was lined up…” This philosophy is called:
Mise en place (French pronunciation: [mi za ‘plas])
It’s a French phrase that means to routinely and habitually arrange the ingredients and tools needed for cooking.
Now, there’s a chance that you’re reading this on an elevator or on your commute and thinking,
“What has gotten into Jason?! He wants to be a chef now?”
Here’s the part that’s easy to miss, mise en place is so much more than diced up garlic and onions. Mise en place is a way to describe the single most important trait of top performers: their habits.
Every chef in this Netflix show has an unrelenting commitment to standards, routines and habits. They are devoutly adherent to mise en place.
They call mise en place a “way of life” and say that it’s the art of slowing things down in order to speed up. When was the last time you brought that much attention to your work?