SoylentNews

martyb writes:

Did you make a New Year's resolution about getting organized? Of all the places where disorder would seem to reign supreme, restaurants have developed a system for keeping order among the chaos:

The system that makes kitchens go is called mise-en-place, or, literally, "put in place." It's a French phrase that means to gather and arrange the ingredients and tools needed for cooking.

But for many culinary professionals, the phrase connotes something deeper. Some cooks call it their religion. It helps them coordinate vast amounts of labor and material, and transforms the lives of its practitioners through focus and self-discipline.

[...]

At Esca, an Italian restaurant in Manhattan's theater district, sous-chef Greg Barr describes what is perhaps the central tenet of mise-en-place: working clean. "It's like a very ... Zen-like thing," he says. "All my knives are clean. Clean cutting board. Clear space to work. Clear mind."

[...]

Across town at Telepan, chef and owner Bill Telepan explains another principle of mise-en-place: slow down to speed up. "I always say, 'Look, I'd rather you take an extra minute or two and slow up service to get it right.' Because the one minute behind you are now is going to become six minutes behind because we're going to have to redo the plate."

I started my working career in a kitchen where I saw these principles in action. I took these principles to heart and can attest that it makes a world of difference in how I go about my day. When I have things organized and things in their proper place, I can get things done quickly and efficiently — almost effortlessly. It's terribly frustrating for me when I have to deal with co-workers who just drop things wherever-they-feel-like-it. I end up wasting more time cleaning up after them and trying to locate things than the actual task at hand would require.

My greatest challenge is that when I encounter a new situation or thing, it takes me a while to figure out where it should belong — where to fit it in with the rest of the already-organized things. How do you Soylentils keep your things organized? Or if you don't organize things, how do you deal with the chaos?