Productivity Tool: “Mise en Place”

“Mise en place” (pronounced MEEZ ahn plahs) is a French phrase which basically means “to put the right things in the right place”. It’s used by chefs to refer to the process of getting things ready before they start to cook the meal. This includes reviewing the recipe, gathering the ingredients, laying out all of the cooking utensils that will be used, measuring spices and other ingredients that will be needed, washing and chopping vegetables, preheating the oven, and so on.

When the chef does start cooking the meal, everything he needs is already laid out before him and all he has to do is work his magic. The concept of mis en place can be applied to almost any other area of your life to help you be more prepared, organized, and productive. Below you’ll find some examples:

First Example of Mis en Place: Goal of Weight Loss

When creating a meal you know exactly what your goal is, you have the necessary ingredients and the amounts needed written in plain text, and the steps you need to take in order to make the dish are carefully explained in the recipe: cook Duck a l’orange for four people following the recipe in the cookbook you got for Christmas. Likewise, when you’re going to set a goal–such as our example of losing weight–you need to be very specific as to what your goal is, as well as how you’re going to achieve it.

A lot of people set the goal, “to lose weight”, and then they’re perplexed when they don’t actually lose any weight. Instead, you have to set a specific goal and then detail the steps you’ll take to reach it. Here’s an example: set a goal of losing 8 pounds in the next six weeks—from November 5th to December 17th, 2008—by doing the following:

• 40 minutes of cardio 5 days a week (burn 300 calories each session);
• Strength training three days a week (burn 50 calories each session);
• Eat reasonable amounts of satisfying, nutritious foods which include three meals and two snacks every day, as well as eating the recommended three servings of fruit and five servings of vegetables each day. At the same time, the meals and snacks for the day cannot exceed the calorie budget of 1600 calories a day.
• Use stress reduction techniques;
• Drink plenty of water;
• Get at least 7.5 hours of sleep each night;

In order to start putting everything in place so that you can achieve your stated goal, you need to create menus for the week: commit to paper exactly what you plan to eat each day—including breakfast, lunch, dinner, and the two daily snacks—making sure that you don’t go over your daily calorie budget and that you get all of the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that you need. Then, break down that list and create a shopping list.

Make sure you go food shopping at the beginning of the week so that you have everything that you need. Thinking you’re going to go to the supermarket to buy the necessary ingredients when you’re hungry and tired is not reasonable. At the beginning of the week look in your refrigerator and pantry, consult the menu you prepared for that week, and add any items that you’re missing to your shopping list.

To take the idea of measuring out ingredients a step further, there’s a line of portion control bowls called Mesü which consists of a set of 6 measuring bowls ranging in size from ½ cup to 2 cups which utilize a colorful graphic system and an exact fill line to measure out perfect portions. Here’s a photograph so you can see what they look like:

Instead of measuring your food into a measuring cup and then pouring it into another dish, the Mesü bowls are both your measuring tool and serving dish.

By knowing exactly what you’re going to be eating ahead of time, making sure that you have all of the necessary ingredients before you’re actually standing in your kitchen hungry at the end of the day, and measuring the exact portion size that will allow you to stick to your allotted number of calories, you’ve almost guaranteed your success in the eating portion of your plan.

Use the same idea to make sure that you create an exercise plan that lets you know what to do and when: write down in your day planner the time at which you will be exercising and what you will be doing. Have your exercise apparel ready. If you plan to exercise in the morning, set everything out on a chair where you’ll be able to see it as soon as you wake up. Again, like in cooking, everything should be carefully measured. If you plan to burn 300 calories a day by jogging for 40 minutes, get a Polar watch and measure how many calories you actually burn each session.

I’m not suggesting that you follow the plan above to lose weight, and this idea applies to you even if you’re not interested in losing weight. What I hope to have explained in this example is how to use the concept of mise en place in order to have everything prepared ahead of time, so that you have a structure set up within which you can more easily move toward achieving your goals.

Two More Examples of Mis en Place

In my post “Conquering Space: Decluttering and Organizing” I explain how to declutter the space in which you live, as well as the space in which you work, and how to organize said space in order to get maximum utility out of it. Although decluttering and organizing take up time, you’ll be saving enormous amounts of time in the long run: if your home and office space are full of clutter and are disorganized, think of all the time that you waste looking for objects that are not in the right place and sifting through things you haven’t used in years in order to find an item you use on a regular basis. Use the concept of mis en place to make sure that everything is in it’s right place so that you can easily find things when you need them.

Another example of the application of mis en place is organizing your closet, which I describe in my post “Creating Closet Bliss”. To quote from that post:

By organizing your closet you’ll increase closet space, you’ll make your closet more functional, you’ll be quickly able to see what you have and therefore spend less time rummaging through the closet looking for something to wear, and you’ll be better able to take care of your clothing, shoes, belts, accessories, and so on. In addition, an organized closet will help you save time, energy, and money, and will help you decrease stress.

Conclusion

The video below, which I found on Boing Boing, shows an artist creating a drawing by first sketching an outline with water. When he’s done with this initial step the page still appears to be blank. Then he takes a brush covered in ink and simply places it on the water stain. Immediately the ink runs down the lines sketched in water, creating a drawing. This is the same concept as in mise en place: if you create a structure within which to achieve your goals, then when it’s time to act you simply follow the path you’ve already cleared out, making your journey toward achieving your goals that much easier.

photo credit: bmente

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere:

• Mis en Place on the Happiness Project: In Which I Learn a New and Useful Happiness Term: Mis-en-Place
• The Mesu bowls also offer a lesson in creativity: they were created by a woman who found that portion control was key to her weight loss goals and knew that others who were trying to lose weight would also find them useful.

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Tagged as: mis en place, Productivity, productivity tool