Work Clean: The life-changing power of mise-en-place to organize your life, work, and mind by Dan Charnas

Work Clean: The life-changing power of mise-en-place to organize your life, work, and mind Reviews

• 
  *TANYA*

  I’m looking to apply for a new position with my current employer and I wanted to brush up on my organizational skills. Very helpful and I learned a thing or two. : )
• 
  7jane

  This is a book about making life more organised and stress-free, with time-management involved too. It uses the mise-en-place organisation way of chefs, put in non-kitchen world, to help us focus and maintain self-discipline, to manage our life when several things to do happen at once, when one should be able to balance work and home, and manage one's time well.
  
  The book is dotted with life situations of the world of chefs, gathered through inteviews, giving us examples as the book flows on. The book is organised in three parts, though one should start making notes from the second part on, not just the last part. First part talks about how mise-en-place works, and what the chaos of one's working life can be without it at its extreme-ish end. The second part breaks the concept in parts, including some exercises. And the third part takes us to how to practice the concept in our everyday life, including a run through a day with it.
  
  It's clear that the author mainly puts the concept in use in the office world, but the plan does work with other kinds of jobs, if one plans (and changes to suitable form) one's use of it. Students of the culinary school apply it to outside world too, for example in preparing for tomorrow, other kinds of study, organising personal space, social activities...
  
  For me, I've kind of used the 'preparing for later activities' already, making sure that I can quickly prepare my tea in the evening, and such. I made a lot of notes reading this book, because I realised quite soon that making notes right from the start of second part was important. I think sometimes the usefulness of the book is shown in how much notes one makes out of it. This one got a lot (and I write small already, so).
  
  I'm sure I will be using what I learned from here for my daily life and its organisation. I don't have a job right now, but even within my loose-fit life I can find myself thinking of using this to feel that I get more done than before. So, great book, and recommended. :)
• 
  Jenn

  If you have a job, a goal, or a dream, you need to read this. If you are chronically late, overwhelmed, or stuck, you need to read this. If you want to improve in any way, you need to read this.
• 
  Jan

  I am so pleased that I received this book as a Giveaway from the author. I only wish I had had the opportunity to read it decades ago. "Work Clean" uses the chef's philosophy of mise-en-place (pronounced as 'mee's on plahhs') as a metaphor for organizing and elevating one's work, family/home and inner self's life through organization.
  
  I had never heard of mise-en-place until two years ago when I was watching a cooking show on the Food Network. One of the famous chefs on the network (it was Ann Burrell) taught a group of inexperienced cooks the process of mise-en-place, which I took to mean: prepare all the ingredients before you begin cooking so it is easier to do the actually cooking part.
  
  After reading this book, I realize my understanding of mise-en-place was very simplistic. It can actually be compared to some Eastern religions. Mise-en-place is mindfulness and behaviors that allow one to successfully accomplish one's goals. That, too, might be a simplistic definition. The three main values of mise-en-place are preparation, process and presence. Obviously those values (preparation, process and presence) can be applied to any human endeavor, so "Work Clean: the life-changing power of mise-en-place to organize your life, work, and mind" by Dan Charnas can be used in one's office, classroom, garden, child-rearing, and any other activity in one's life.
  
  I really wish I had know this technique as I began my teaching career and when we bought our first house. Organization does not come easily to me, so when I have tried to be organized in the past, I literally spent almost all of time and energy on figuring out how to be organized. I still didn't accomplish what needed to be accomplished.
  
  The key ingredient I believe are those three values (preparation, process and presence). I realize I never internalized the organization piece. I was just viewing it as another task instead of a state of mind, a philosophy, if you will.
  
  The book is written using mise-en-place. It is structured in a highly organized manner with ten chapters each breaking down an element of mise-en-place. Actually, Dan Charnas identifies these ten concepts as "ingredients" of working clean. They range from planning, arranging the work space, cleaning as you go, to slowing down in order to speed up, just to name a few. Each chapter or "ingredient" of working clean is sectioned into headings and subheadings including diagrams. The pages are visually easy to read.
  
  You can take from the powerful philosophy what you want. You can read it for tips to be more organized in the kitchen. Or perhaps you could use the concepts to streamline your lesson planning, or to set up your mise-en-place workstation better. You can even practice mise-en-place for everything you do, just as the great chefs do. You can also keep coming back to it to improve and further utilize the concepts. I certainly plan to! I also intend to gift this book to my daughter and son-in-law, to give them the gift of mise-en-place as they begin their married life together!
• 
  Gabi

  I was so excited to receive a copy of this book from Goodreads Giveaways! Although I am not in the culinary field, I find it absolutely fascinating. Work Clean looked like the perfect marriage of two of my favorite things: organization and culinary culture.
  
  Overall I was very pleased with the book, and found a lot of practical methods that would apply to my daily workplace organization. At times the author’s explanation of the method was a little heavy, a required a few re-reads to make sense. However, the concept of mise-en-place in work and life is conveyed in such a way that I was able to pull what worked for me.
  
  My absolute favorite part of this book was the stories told throughout. There are multiple snapshots of lives of chefs, and how mise-en-place affected and continues to affect them every single day. I also enjoyed the hypothetical stories about how to use mise-en-place in the workplace. There was one particular story about an employee being disorganized and how it essentially threw off his entire day. It was so relatable I was wincing while reading it!
  
  This book is definitely worth a read for anyone looking for a new method of staying on top of everything, while avoiding excessive stress and burnout. Although I do not think I will implement the complete mise-en-place system, I have definitely adapted parts of it into my daily regime and would happily suggest it to others.
  
• 
  Anna

  This book took me MONTHS to finish. I'm generally not a fan of self-help/motivation books, but every once in a while I'll give in, just to stay open minded. But I truly loathed every page of this. Peppered with stupid mantras like "The first move is always figuring out the first move," pointless exercises to sort your to-dos into "missions", case studies with random chefs, and advice that is general AF (See: spend the first thirty mins of your day reading your emails and going over your daily schedule... But a whole chapter on it!) this was a major waste of time. Do not recommend. You will get the same benefits of reading this book if you just set your alarm 15 mins earlier each day, and spend the last 15 mins of your day planning one or two concrete tasks that would make your tomorrow smoother. The other details in here are 100% filler that can go in one ear and out the other.
• 
  Mike

  I didn’t need to read another productivity book but this one at least was framed from a different perspective of chefs. The anecdotes of the different chefs was nice to read about, especially given my recent hobby of cooking
• 
  Anusha Shamanur

  Having always been fascinated by the concept of mise-en-place, I enjoyed reading the interesting anecdotes on how chefs train to practice it and make their lives easier. The power of a chef’s calm and disciplined mind in running a busy kitchen, free of chaos, is paralleled in an entertaining manner with how it can be applied to our daily routines.
  
  If you want to focus more on the exercises to apply mise-en-place at work and other areas of lives, I would recommend reading a physical/digital copy, as the content is quite lengthy to remember on a single listen. Though some of it is common sense, it doesn’t dictate you to get your life to perfection, but instead stresses on the balance between order and disorder, planning and spontaneity, required to make it all work in a sane pace. To quote the author: “Mess is the cure for some of order’s ills, like, obsessiveness and rigidity and order is the cure for some of mess’s ills, like, laziness and indifference. There’s a time and a place for everything.”
  
  Overall, it’s a fun read, whether you consider yourself organized or want to get better at it.
• 
  Deanna

  Superb. GTD is a start, and the essential principles of that system are captured here. This, instead, is the process flow, philosophy, and proud way to practice any kind of work, anywhere. Primarily story-driven, interspersed with exercises and concluding with integrated system. I have the audio and kindle versions and am adding the paper version. One of the rare books that I want to recommend to just about anyone.
• 
  Sam

  As usual with this type of non-fiction topic book, I love the concept but it is way too long because the author tries to make it into a step-by-step comprehensive guide to all of life.
  
  One hallmark of a skilled actor is being able to convey meaning and emotion without saying anything. A skilled writer can do something similar, leading the reader to make realizations and connections on their own (i.e. reading between the lines). Maybe that's not what people want in the self-help genre, but this book could have been even more impactful to me if it were half as long.
  
  Otherwise, I really enjoyed the stories in the book (which compose a little less than half of it). Chefs have a discipline for preparation, organization, and cleanliness that I really would like to incorporate into my profession.
• 
  Aurooba

  Possibly one of the best productivity books I've ever read.
• 
  Snorre Lothar von Gohren Edwin

  It is a great book if you want to understand more about the kitchen. It is a great book if you need elementary introduction to how to work clean and efficient. It is an entertaining book with all its stories. But if you have been doing trying to work clean for some years it is quite repetitive. One nice take away was that one can now have 3 words on how to express this philosophy.
  Mise en place.
  I keep my work life Mise en place.
  I keep my personal life Mise en place.
  
  So everything I write about here
  https://vongohren.me/posts/ now have three simple words to explain the way of life. That is nice
• 
  Mark Sutherland

  The bulk of this book is about the restaurant discipline of mise-en-place, with lots of interviews and stories to illustrate the underlying principles. The back half then attempts to apply these to modern office work and advocates a particular system (in the vein of GTD). He's a little too indulgent of hustle culture and the frankly abusive environment that seems to be the norm of many kitchens. Overall this is excellent food for thought when it comes to evaluating your own work systems but I'm not entirely persuaded that his Work Clean method is obviously superior.
• 
  Angela

  This book really spoke to me, probably because it jives simultaneously with a lot of my life philosophies & neuroses. Basically, it takes the principles of mise-en-place used by professional chefs & looks at how non-chefs can maybe become more productive/happier by employing them. Some are more applicable than others and I'm not saying I immediately implemented every strategy in the book, but I did spend half a day stripping down my office & getting rid of the stacks of papers & books that tend to accumulate, another half day cleaning out my work & personal email inboxes (not quite at zero, but close), & have gotten super rigorous about using time efficiently, working harder at not wasting things (especially food), & constantly cleaning up after myself. I have a feeling that if you enjoyed Marie Kondo, you'll probably like this one (though you may need it less now).
• 
  Sam Spurlin

  I've been waiting for a book like this for a long time and it mostly lived up to expectations. The sections near the end where he tries to translate the concept into a cut and dry personal organization/management system (ala GTD) wasn't useful to me and I disagree with some of the key tenets (like putting tasks on the calendar) -- but that's mostly a function of how deep I'm into GTD already. For somebody who does not already have an organizing philosophy or system that may actually be useful. The more conceptual and philosophical sections definitely gave me stuff to think about and ideas of how to translate into my own life and work.
• 
  Nicole

  Almost finished with this book, and I can already tell it will be a re-read. I might even buy a hard copy because it’s that good.
  
  If you’re routinely scattered, discombobulated, or stressed, this book will help. If you’re already super organized and want to fine-tune your skills (sharpen your knife, if you will) then this book is also for you.
  
  Simply put, if you want to be a more efficient and functional human, read this now. #miseenplace
• 
  Deanna

  Still my favorite productivity book.
  
• 
  Alexandra

  Best productivity book I've read. hands down.
• 
  Scott Wozniak

  This book is about the methodology of fine dining chefs--not the food, but the kitchen arrangement, sequencing of the tasks, precise communication among the team, cleaning as you go, etc. It's a beautiful mix of a model for us to use in the rest of life and an homage to some of the great chefs of our time.
  
  The stories are interesting and the examples are very specific. Then he even goes through and applies these principles back to the life of a typical office worker. At the heart of the method is: 1) carving out time to plan and get set up in advance, 2) making all your moves in the right sequence with the fewest switches back and forth, 3) cleaning as you go so there is never a big mess and you always have a space that feels in order. His application to an office environment was very well done. Many people stop short of giving the last 10% of practical advice, but he gives lots of examples.
  
  There are a lot more principles that he shares, including some profound ideas (e.g. slow & smooth with ultimately beat fast & frantic, starting now is far more valuable than starting later because time multiplies your results), but the generally fall under this mindset.
  
  If you like cooking, this will be super valuable for you. If you are looking for a way to order your life so that is all clean, smooth and you don't have any last minute chaos, you are going to love this book. However, it's not for everyone, I think. The author loves clean, ordered, planned living and only gives a vague acknowledgement that this doesn't always work at home--but then goes on to show how he does this in his home and his work, how everything is clean, ordered and planned ahead.
  
  So, if that's your vision for your life, you'll love this book.
• 
  LdyGray

  This is one of the better organizational books I've read (and I have read many!). Some of the techniques are straightforward, but I enjoyed the way Charnas brings insights from chefs and their kitchens to the organizational aspects of office jobs.
• 
  Annelies

  Ik vond dit echt een boeiend boek, deels door de tips (niet allemaal even haalbaar), voornamelijk door de inkijk in de keukens en de denkwijzes van de chefs. Ga er nog vaak aan terugdenken, denk ik.
• 
  Sarah Wessel

  Since the development of shows like Top Chef and Hell's Kitchen, I have become fascinated with the mechanics of restaurants and chef's. This book addresses some of my questions while providing a different way of thinking through or at least talking about time management skills needed by most.
• 
  Sara

  Charnas does an excellent job taking the culinary concept of mise-en-place and applying it towards the workaday world and its tasks. I especially enjoyed the interviews with various chefs, which helped provide a lot of underpinning to the concept, as well as providing a behind-the-scenes look into how professional kitchens are run. There is a lot of useful information, some of which I was able to implement in my own work. I did find the final section, where Charnas compiles all of the ideas from the rest of the book, to be a bit overwhelming; no matter what your career, though, there is lots of food for thought.
  
  **I received an ARC from the publisher via Edelweiss. All opinions are my own.**
• 
  Mr. Banks

  I stumbled upon this book while wondering through an airport bookstore in Danang, Vietnam. It was hidden amongst a myriad of business books, autobiographies, and some of the notable classics of self-help (think Thinking Fast and Slow). So here I was, staring at a sleek, clean, and well laid out cover called Work Clean. I read the subtitle and immediately knew that this book was for me.
  
  For the past year I’ve been travelling around the world staying on friend’s coaches, hotels, hostels, airbnbs, and other rooms that usually didn’t come with a private kitchen. During this time, and for a bit before, I have been obsessing over travel food shows, shows about fine dining chefs, and any other kitchen or cooking related programs. I’ve also read the beginning of a few cook books, watched cooking tutorials on YouTube, and listened to Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential audiobook. In another life, I used to be an avid cook, but as I’ve been travelling I haven’t had the opportunity to cook or prepare my own meals. My hypothesis for obsessing over these cooking shows is due to my self-imposed lack of a dedicated cooking space.
  
  However, when I read the subtitle of the Work Clean book, it immediately dawned on me that my obsession with great chefs wasn’t the fact that I didn’t have the opportunity to cook like them, it was my inability to be as productive, or as I recently learned, to be as effective as them in their daily work. For quite some time now, I’ve realized that I’m not the greatest at discipline and productivity. This is something I’ve tried to solve by reading countless willpower and productivity books and blog posts. Unfortunately, each one taught me only some basic tools to become slightly more productive, or provided scientific reasons on why my brain was failing to be productive, and not how to stay productive after the fresh ideas faded from my mind. To be disciplined and more effective with my work, I needed a new strategy to deal with my lack of focus, and I believe that this book provided me with the fresh eyes to carry me through the difficult troughs.
  
  The book’s author, Dan Charnas, touts the concept of mis-en-place to be the godsend of a chef’s productivity, and I believe that there is a lot of truth in this statement. Not being a chef myself, I only have the anecdotal evidence of friends and family who are chefs (cooks), and from watching documentaries and TV shows about being a chef. With every conversation I’ve had, and in every show, the discussion of a chef’s mis-en-place is usually the centrepiece for the chef’s ability to provide consistent delivery (i.e. excellence). For a complete amateur, Charnas was able to convey the basic concepts of mis-en-place in an easy to digest way; giving everyone the toolkit for the chef’s superpower. Using interviews of famous chefs and describing the CIA’s (Culinary Institute of America) teaching process, the reader is provided with an inside look into a practice that imbues itself into a chef’s career and personal life.
  
  The book is divided into three sections. The first, an introduction of how mis-en-place provides the balance between focus and chaos, the yin and yang, of a chef’s life. Next, we are treated to the ten “ingredients” of how we can work clean. Each of these ingredients is a lesson we should apply in our daily lives, whether cooking or work, and they follow the consistent pattern of story of a chef, how chefs use the lesson, the takeaways for work life, exercises to build on the lesson, and finally a conclusion of the lesson. These ingredients take up the majority of the book and they range from learning how to plan, cleaning as you go, and the power of communication. Finally, Charnas concludes the book with a section dedicated to putting all these ingredients into practice using new terminology, a strategy of planning, and how mis-en-place provides the framework of a system of organization for systems of organization. I really appreciated the section named “A Day of Working Clean” where the reader is presented with examples of how to set up a daily meeze (planning), working through their processes, and how to stay present in a day of chaos.
  
  The lessons provide tools similar to other productivity books. Instead of abstract examples, though, they used examples of chefs and how kitchens employ the lessons in real life examples. With these kitchen examples, and work life applications, I was able to judge how I could personally apply the lessons in my everyday life. This was helpful for determining which ingredients I lacked, and which ones I was already practicing.
  
  However, there is a slight drawback to use only examples throughout the book. The argument on the basis of examples from top chefs requires you to trust the authority of chefs and the CIA rather than accurate studies and data backing these approaches. I struggle with productivity books that rely on this type of thesis due to my own personal bias against arguments of authority. There were also a couple contradictions between the lessons. For example, cleaning as you go was contradicted by the total utilization section when we learned some chefs had a messy home; an argument I struggled to accept. Nonetheless, my appreciation of chefs and the kitchen world overruled any issues I held, and I was able to accept many of the lessons and apply them into my daily life (and daily mezze!).
  
  Overall, I enjoyed the book and am already using the strategies I learned in my work, personal, and fitness life. There are many helpful lessons that I took away from the book, and I’m looking forward to see if there is a significant increase in the effectiveness of my projects. Only time will tell, so until then, it’s time to start the process.
• 
  Kara

  The book modern knowledge workers need
  
  No one really teaches you how to organize your busy hectic life. You’re just supposed to figure it out. Now you don’t have to. Charnas has provided a time tested, honored set of practices that you can apply to your life. Work Clean is a way of life.
• 
  Elizabeth

  A fascinating look at the process of mise-en-place in the kitchen and how we non-chefs can apply the techniques to get us organized in our daily lives. Loved the concept of the Daily Meeze. I also appreciated the concept that a project that is 90% done is not done.