Sunday, March 30, 2008

How's Your Meez?

I've been working on finally setting up my home office to be functional,
and have a flow, mostly following my own interpretation of GTD (David
Allen's system). I was been thinking about the importance of having all
the elements of your system, from inputs (blank paper, your inbox) to
tools (pens that work, stamps, staplers, hole punches, post-it notes,
blank CDs) to outputs (out box, reference filing system, garbage and
recycling) all *within arms reach*. Then I read this, from Anthony
Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, that reinforced why this is so important:

Mise-en-place is the religion of all good line cooks. Do *not* fuck with a
line cook's "meez" - meaning their set-up, their carefully arranged
supplies of sea salt, rough-cracked pepper, softened butter, cooking oil,
wine, back-ups and so on. As a cook, your station and its condition, its
state of readiness, is an extension of your nervous system - and it is
profoundly upsetting if another cook, or God forbid, a *waiter* - disturbs
your precisely and carefully laid-out system. The universe is in order
when your station is set up the way you like it: you know where to find
everything with your eyes closed, everything you need during the course of
the shift is at the ready at arm's reach, your defenses are deployed. If
you let your mise-en-place run down, get dirty and disorganized, you'll
quickly find yourself spinning in place and calling for backup.

Sure my job doesn't have the kind of ultra-high second by second urgency
of being a line cook, but I want to take this attitude towards my desk and
its immediate surroundings:, not just setting it up right to begin with,
but fiercely protecting and maintaining that arrangement. I have a sense
that's a critical part of getting that flow in my job going, that feeling
that my tools are "an extension of your nervous system", like those line
cooks *must* have to survive (I also have a theory that this setupcan play
an important part in fighting procrastination)
Now what is the equivalent of having a good mise-en-place on your
computer?

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