Keep it slow and simple with… mise en place

If you could measure your life in its tiniest actions, what would it add up to? Hundreds of miles of writing, thousands of scoops of coffee and walks through aisles of produce, millions and millions of steps. Every day, you make the coffee, walk the dog, prepare the meal, write the list, clean it up, mess it up, repeat. 

We are all intimately familiar with the minutiae of our days. It’s surprising really how often we find ourselves unprepared for it—suddenly out of coffee on a tired morning or in the middle of a two-egg recipe when you only have one.

The Set Up - You may know the term mise en place from cooking. It’s a French phrase that means to get set up. For cooks, it means prepping your ingredients before you begin cooking and arranging them close at hand. 

And it works brilliantly for so many other things. You can arrange a writing box with a pen, stationary and stamps and set yourself up to send letters when you have a few moments—the ingredients are close at hand. Or create a music playlist especially for your morning walk and have your earbuds, shoes and hat ready to go in a basket. 

Use mise en place with your bath routine, your morning tea, your lunch, your reading nook, your sewing or painting or woodworking. And yes...prep your recipes. I know you think you have vanilla, but you’re out. Trust me.