6 principles of workflow management you can learn from French chefs

French chefs have the concept of mise-en-place, which means “everything in its place”. It was invented by thirteen-year-old Auguste Escoffier back in 1859, when he began helping his uncle with work in a restaurant.

The boy grew up and devoted his life to transforming French cuisine into a world standard, and the work of a cook into high art. He created a hierarchy whereby every ingredient, tool, or dish was served according to a clear plan.

Chefs, like all knowledge workers, have limited stores of memory and energy. Therefore, they optimize the processes in the kitchen so that the routine part takes up as few resources as possible and there is time to focus on the creative. One of the most fundamental and rewarding skills you can learn from these masters is managing your work.

1. Be consistent

In the kitchen, it is important that the meat is thawed before chopping, the pasta is cooked before the sauce is added, and the garlic is peeled before being placed in the dish. The correct sequence is extremely important here. It only takes a few seconds to get the chicken out of the freezer. But the taste of the dish depends on whether the chef forgot to do this at the beginning of the shift, and indeed whether it will be cooked.

So it is in work. The tasks you complete first set the tone for the day. If you know that you will need to download a large program and it will take about an hour, start the download and do something else in parallel.

If you postpone this matter until the moment when you need the program, then you will have to be nervous and slow down the processes. The minutes spent now can save you hours later. Therefore, do not forget to compose the liststo determine the sequence of actions.

2. Use reminders

In the kitchen, each item has its own place. If the cook has put a frying pan on the stove, then this is not just a frying pan, but also a reminder that some kind of dish is being prepared. The oil on it does not just hiss, but signals that it is time to take the next step. If the chef needs to cook three dishes in parallel, he can put a saucepan on the fire, remove the cream from the refrigerator and place the herbs on a cutting board.

Those who do not work with products, but with information, can receive hundreds of notifications and a dozen letters per hour. And each time after reading them, you need to put the information received in the right place, like a bunch of greenery on a blackboard.

For this, a task manager, notes on the phone, an application for deferred reading, and online calendar. They are the digital "environment" that "remembers" everything you need. After any incoming request, place a reminder about it "on the cutting board" - so nothing will be lost.

3. Distinguish between task types

Time cannot be slowed down or accelerated. But cooks believe that it is not always the same, and distinguish two types: the time that requires the involvement of a person, and the one that does not.

The first relates to tasks that require the chef to be fully focused and involved. Stirring, chopping, adding seasonings - these actions will always take a certain number of minutes, both if they are performed now and if they are postponed for later.

The second type of time refers to tasks that can be completed without the direct attention of the cook. Grilling, heating, marinating, boiling are processes that must be started by a person, but they continue to happen even when the cook switches to something else.

In working with information, we hardly realize the difference between these types of tasks. We tend to overestimate those that require our full inclusion, because that's when we seem to be doing our best. But in fact, it is the tasks that do not require our involvement that give us the greatest benefits.

Because the small steps we take to speed things up make it possible to focus on other things. Better now to spend 20 minutes and show a new one colleaguehow to complete a task than to postpone it for a week and spend much more time doing it yourself.

Train yourself to distinguish between tasks on your to-do list that require different degrees of involvement.

This is critical when it comes to planning a sequence of actions. Cases that do not require your direct participation are especially effective at the beginning.

4. Start Only What You Can Finish

A dish that is 99% cooked has no value. It must either be ready, hot and served to the guest on time, or nothing. Therefore, cooks do not start what they cannot finish. As soon as the dish is ready, it immediately acquires great value. Not only because it can finally go to the guest, but also because it no longer requires attention.

The same thing happens with mental labor. Every time we run and then stop some kind of process, we incur hidden losses. An unresolved task will need to be managed and updated information on it. It takes place on your to-do list, on your computer or desk, and most importantly, in your subconscious mind.

You can reach the point where all your resources will be spent only tracking and remembering all the outstanding tasks. Therefore, every time you start a project, ask yourself: "How and when will I finish it?"

Of course, it is not always possible to complete what you started. Working with information is inherently unpredictable. Sometimes a quick phone call turns into an hour long conversation that thwarts your entire plan for the day.

It's even important to just think about how to finish the task. Instead of immediately switching to another task, take a few extra seconds to record information about the unfinished business in the task tracker.

5. Optimize repetitive actions

In order to cook one meal after another, the chef needs more than just act as quickly as possible. He should optimize repetitive actions. Each of them does not take much time, but due to their number, effectiveness can be lost.

Therefore, instead of taking each ingredient out of the refrigerator as the dish is prepared, it is better to get them all at once, if this does not contradict recipe. Thus, the cook works quickly, not because he is exhausted, but because he gains a few seconds here, a couple of minutes there, and in the end saves a lot of time.

It is important for knowledge workers to get rid of actions that are repeated at some frequency. Let's take as an example the person who runs the social media of a brand. He needs to publish posts every day, distracting from his other tasks and switching attention. It will be more effective to use the auto-posting service, prepare all the materials for a week in advance and give the application the opportunity to publish them.

6. Organize your workspace

The chef organizes his workplace so that everything is logical. The ingredients are on the left side of the cutting board, the chopping board is in the center, and the processed ingredients are on the right. After each use, the knife and towel are returned to their places.

This "separation" of ingredients and tools must be constant from day to day so that the chef can understand where everything is. The workspace becomes an extension of the boss's mind, so he can reach for a spoon or knife as intuitively and naturally as he addresses the thoughts in his head.

The working environment of those involved in mental work is constantly changing. On the one hand, this has an advantage: you can do your own thing from anywhere in the world. But there is also a drawback: there is no way to properly organize the workspace. At the same time, it is extremely stable: everything happens on a computer and spreads to mobile devices, tablets, smart watches and even the screens of other people.

Organizing your space is quite simple:

• Create habits to predictably start and end your day.
• Use digital notes as your primary productivity tool so you always have all your information with you.
• Create separate workspaces for each of your most important projects.
• Finish every day or week by closing all browser tabs and shutting down your computer.

Each of these procedures sets boundaries - of time, space, or aspiration - that help you understand what to focus on and what to ignore.

French chefs are always mindful of the constraints of time and space. They cannot console themselves with stories like "The project is going according to plan" or "I'll get to this soon." To be successful, it is important for them to be focused on a specific task and see the whole picture. This same ability will be very useful for knowledge workers.