Read December 2022
This book frames a bunch of productivity advice in the practice of mise en place used by professional chefs. A lot of the ideas are familiar to me from other reading, for example Deep Work by Cal Newport, but with subtle differences, and framed in the physicality of kitchen work.
Highlights
Gawande [author of the Checklist Manifesto] divides checklists into two distinct groups. Read-Do—read the checklist item, then do the item Do-Confirm—do all the items and then use the checklist afterward to confirm You can also think of these as preflight and postflight checklists.
I’d never thought of different checklist types before, but this is definitely a useful distinction for me to think about. I think I use preflight checklists generally for things that need to get done in a specific order, and postflight checklists for when order doesn’t matter, for example make a code contribution compared to packing a bag. Checklists are vital for me because make me break things down into tiny tasks, which help with overwhelm at big tasks, and stop me forgetting things.
Process tasks don’t necessarily demand immediate action, but by their nature, they should be done or delegated in the short term. Immersive tasks can be delayed, but if left unscheduled for too long, they become blocks to your work and career.
Charnas makes the distinction between Process tasks and Immersive tasks. Immersive time is spent doing things that require your deep attention, and only you can do largely independently of external things. Process tasks are generally smaller bits of work, but which enable others to do other things in the background once you have given your small piece of input. This distinction reminds me both of the Eisenhower matrix of urgent/important things, and deep/shallow work. However in this framing, the more shallow work of replying to email to unblock others can often be more valuable to do sooner than the deep work of your own projects, as it allows background processing to happen in parallel with your own work. Something in my programmer brain also likes the idea of kicking off a bunch of background processes while I work on the main thread.
In our society we’ve come to see speed and urgency as antithetical to quality. For the chef, the deadline is integral to quality. Without delivery, there’s no feedback, severing the improvement loop that creates excellence. Excellence is quality delivered.
This is so key, and a thing I struggle with. Getting things completed and shipped is the only way to make them good, and deadlines (true external ones or self-imposed) help me actually get things out in the world, where I can begin to learn how to improve them. A dish 90% done might as well be 0% done.
Remember, a Routine is not an Action, but a time bucket for Actions, in the same way that a plate is not a meal. But the way you arrange your table determines what you can fit on it.
I like this idea of creating a defined space on your calendar for different types of task, and making this a consistent routine. Everything you need to do has its own time, and in turn this helps constrain what you are able to take on.
There’s a bunch of thought about optimising your work area for ease of movement, and spending time learning how to use your tools well. This makes me think about the importance of, for example, learning your text editor or IDE, knowing all the keyboard shortcuts, getting good at typing. Small time investments here can really pay off in the long run, although beware of spending too much time on automation, as XKCD reminds.
Charnas also discusses the idea of planning backwards from an end goal or deadline. This same idea was present in Refuse to Choose, and I really should give it a go. Sequencing a lot of actions, and working out the steps required to achieve a big goal or result, is really hard for me, and often stops me making progress. Getting a plan like this done when I have good brain energy will probably be really helpful for when things get hard and overwhelming while actually doing the work. This reminds me of the FlowPilot tool demonstrated in the Tools for Thought Rocks community talk a while ago.