The French Organizing Habit That Minimizes the Chaos in My Home (I Use It In Every Room!)

As a kid, I always enjoyed hanging out with my dad while he cooked dinner. Once, he told me about a French cooking term, mise en place, which in English translates to “put in place” or “everything in its place.” It’s a strategy used by professional chefs (and savvy home cooks!), whose high-stress jobs require managing mayhem, to make their workspace as efficient as possible. The idea is that if they prepare their ingredients, gather their tools, etc. before they get to work, everything will go more smoothly.

Despite not being very skilled in the kitchen, the concept has stuck with me. In fact, I’ve since realized that it has endless applications elsewhere in the home. These are the steps to mise en place I follow in my own family that really do keep chaos to a (relative) minimum.

As parents, we have a very finite amount of time to accomplish all the things required of us in a day. For years I’ve kept a running list of everything I have to get done, and once a week I figure out how to make it all fit in my schedule. It’s not uncommon that I have to move tasks around (in fact, it happens daily), but because I plan a week at a time, I always know exactly what kind of flexibility I have.

Why choose to be unprepared when you can easily save yourself the stress? If I know my daughter has to get ready for gymnastics right after school, for example, I like to lay out her leotard, fill up her water bottle, and grab a hair tie before I leave for pickup. This cuts down on any potential scrambling when we get back, making it far more likely that we’ll be on time for class.

From picking out clothes the night before to putting school events in my calendar before the year even starts, the use cases are limitless.

I can confidently tell you from experience that leaving a mess for later always makes it take longer to clean up. (Or, at the very least, it feels longer.) Once you get in the habit of loading the dishwasher, spot treating stains, and vacuuming crumbs as soon as you realize you need to, you’ll never go back to your old ways again.

One of the reasons kitchen staff can move so fast is that they always know exactly where their ingredients and tools are. My home isn’t perfect, but I do try and organize it so that everything we own has a specific, dedicated spot. This benefits my daughter just as much as it benefits me, and I’d like to think that this level of order helps encourage her independence. She doesn’t have to ask me for help because she can already find whatever she wants.