[HN Gopher] Mise-en-place for knowledge workers
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Mise-en-place for knowledge workers
Author : ingve
Score : 184 points
Date : 2021-07-02 07:22 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fortelabs.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (fortelabs.co)
| gumby wrote:
| The intern system at large companies is supposed to, and often
| does implement the same apprentice function that the trades have.
| jamestimmins wrote:
| Interesting comparison.
|
| Heads up for the author that this skips #6, and goes from 5 to 7.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| Smalltalk-80 had a fantastic work-management tool. I haven't
| checked lately but I think Squeak and Pharo Smalltalk
| environments still have the same.
|
| On the desktop of Smalltalk Virtual Image you can right-click and
| say "New Project". This open a new window, which you can resize
| as you wish. Right-clicking on that allows you to "Enter
| Project". When you do you see a new desktop into which you can
| open various tool-windows, browsers and debuggers etc. You can
| open nested projects as deep as you wish. You can exit a project
| but it still remains, with its window in the parent-project as
| the handle to it. As you exit your Smalltalk session you
| typically choose to "Save Image" which means this tree of
| projects, each having its own state and set of windows, perhaps a
| debugger halted on a piece of code open in it.
|
| When you're working on something you often discover that to do
| this you must first do something else. No problem, open a new
| "project" window on your Smalltalk desktop. Once that sub-task is
| done you can exit that project and close its window.
|
| The name "project" is not the best word for them I think, I think
| they should be called "tasks". Why does that matter? Because I
| think it's important to understand that this is not about Project
| Management. This is Task Management. Something in the spirit of
| mise-en-place perhaps. You could create a Smalltalk image with
| tree on "project windows" on it and share it without co-workers.
| These sub-projects could describe the subtasks and allow you to
| record you progress in them, say for cooking a specific meal.
|
| Smalltalk "project-windows" are such a great idea I wonder why
| something like them does not exist in other environments. No
| doubt having a "Virtual Machine" whose state is easily saved is a
| requirement.
| [deleted]
| Zababa wrote:
| A better analogy for the "finishing mindset" would be that every
| running process takes RAM, and you can only have so much of it.
| This highlights the fact that finishing a task has a value
| regardless of the value of the task, because it frees resources
| that can be used for something else.
|
| I think trying to stretch the analogy too much is detrimental to
| the whole article. For example the reminders: a post it on my
| screen will remind me at all time that I should do something,
| because the "default mode" of the post it is existing. The
| default mode of the digital is not existing. I need to boot my
| computer to have my to-do list app, or consult my phone, or open
| my notebook. This is not the case with a physical reminder (sure
| the notebook is physical, but it needs an action to remind you of
| something).
| LunaSea wrote:
| He died at age 88 not 99.
| sbuk wrote:
| There is a fantastic book called 'Work Clean: The Life-Changing
| Power of Mise-en-Place to Organize Your Life, Work and Mind' by
| Dan Charnas that goes into more depth about Mise-en-Place.
|
| https://www.workclean.com/
| skinkestek wrote:
| > [...] and this is reflected in the strictly defined roles he
| created for the kitchen:
|
| These days knowledge work seems to be about making everyone a
| "fullstacker".
|
| I love learning but I think it is more than a bit wasteful to let
| me do css work (I have red/green colorblindness).
| kortilla wrote:
| So little of css is work is in color picking that I don't think
| color blindness matters.
| svachalek wrote:
| The long term trend is toward ever more specialization. Even a
| "full stacker" implies a certain subset of web tech. You
| wouldn't hire a "full stacker" to do your kernel work, or
| device driver, or likely even your mobile app. 30 years ago,
| programmers was programmers.
|
| There might be a momentary tick downward on this trend, like a
| correction in the stock market. But I don't think it changes
| the overall direction, and honestly I haven't even noticed a
| blip.
| itomato wrote:
| > Because of this brutal reality (In cooking, a dish that is 99%
| finished has zero value), chefs must adopt a "finishing mindset."
|
| Perfect is the enemy of Done.
|
| It hurts me to read this and to think of people adopting a
| "finishing mindset" while also trying to get behind:
|
| (1) planning is prime
|
| (2) arranging spaces and perfecting movements
|
| (3) cleaning as you go
|
| (4) making first moves
|
| (5) finishing actions
|
| (6) slowing down to speed up
|
| (7) call and callback
|
| (8) open ears and eyes
|
| (9) inspect and correct
|
| (10) total utilization
|
| https://books.google.com/books?id=l8tUCwAAQBAJ
| pc86 wrote:
| I think this is a good example of the analogy falling apart. A
| feature that is 99% done may actually be fine. Or it may not be
| much better than 0% or 50% - that sort of depends on the
| business side and how incremental a given feature can be and
| still provide value.
|
| Still, I think in general it's a good idea to be a _little_
| more on the "finishing mindset" of things than the "if it
| builds, it ships" side of things.
| mdoms wrote:
| I think this needs to be combined with breaking things down
| into as small a piece of work as possible. Yes a feature may
| be valuable at 99% completion, but hopefully that means a
| whole stack of work items at 100% and a small handful of
| unstarted work items.
| lmilcin wrote:
| > I think this is a good example of the analogy falling
| apart.
|
| No, it is not.
|
| It is up to you to define what is 100% of your project. If
| you think something is not worth it, just don't put it in the
| 100%. Be honest in saying "No, we are not going to do it".
|
| Too many projects linger because there is no will of getting
| this or that done. Either redefine the project or just f-n do
| it and be done with it. This helps put definitive end to the
| project possibly letting you call success on it. It also
| frees up your mind to work on other stuff.
| kortilla wrote:
| > Either redefine the project
|
| This is why the analogy is shit. "Redefining the project"
| as done when it was 95% there is the same thing as it being
| good enough.
| dcastonguay wrote:
| This isn't my understand of what the parent commenter is
| trying to communicate. I think the point that they're
| trying to make is this:
|
| A chef could originally decide that a dish is only
| complete if it is garnished with a terribly rare
| ingredient that costs an enormous amount of money; this
| would be analogous to a dev team lead deciding that a new
| feature will only be considered complete if it covers
| non-primary use cases or specific pieces of functionality
| that will add a substantial amount of time to the overall
| development estimate.
|
| The parent comment is saying that defining that 100% is
| part of what will impact your possibility/rate of success
| or failure; the 100% is not predefined or intrinsic, it's
| a place in time / level of progress that you need to
| carefully define. If rarity and cost keep you from
| obtaining the "finishing" ingredient 80% of the time that
| you make the dish then you're setting yourself up for
| failure. If you define the feature as only being finished
| when it covers nearly every sub-feature you can think of
| then you're setting yourself up for failure.
|
| There also seem to be analogies between quantity and
| quality. You can get 80% of the way through a feature and
| decide it's "good enough". The leftover 20% could either
| be bugs that needed to be fixed or additional features. I
| don't think leaving out some additional features would be
| considered skipping the "finishing" phase, but leaving
| serious unresolved bugs almost definitely would be. An
| undercooked dish is nearly useless, but one missing a
| garnish is not.
| svachalek wrote:
| Yes, I think this "99% counts for nothing" mindset is fair
| when applied to a task card or pull request. You can play
| games with semantics and say the journey is all that
| matters or it's the friends we made along the way, but
| seriously you can fall into a trap of having 12 unfinished
| feature branches, at which point most of them are
| practically guaranteed to go in the trash can. There's
| value in saying, that's really important, but it's more
| important to ship this first.
| jimmySixDOF wrote:
| Old advice I got from a Project Director : "90% means you
| are almost half way done"
| mberning wrote:
| The author would be surprised how variable and not at all
| standardized tasks such as welding a seam or putting in an IV
| are. Sometimes requirements and or regulations (organizational or
| governmental) create dramatically different practices.
| clipradiowallet wrote:
| > standardized tasks such as welding a seam
|
| I came to comment on this as well... there is an entire
| industrial workforce of CWIs(certified welding inspectors), who
| exist because welding a seam is not as easy as youtube would
| lead people to believe. It's easy to make it _look_ correct,
| but it 's the attributes of the weld you cannot see that make
| it safe/unsafe. Doing it correctly is not something you can
| learn from a book or listening to someone talk about...it's
| something you learn by doing it over, and over, and over, until
| it "feels" correct. The author may as well have included
| "performing a quadruple heart bypass" in their list of well-
| understood concepts.
|
| A knowledge worker learns from repetition the "right way" to do
| things. Example rules like "document your work in a clear and
| concise manner" read a lot like "weld the seam from a
| consistent angle and with consistent fill material". Multiple
| people will follow those instructions, and you will end up with
| very different outcomes among the individuals doing the work.
| The sign of a well-seasoned craftsperson is that it "feels"
| right, and that only comes from long-term repetition.
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| If it looks correct, how do the CWIs identify unacceptable
| welds?
| krallja wrote:
| https://www.cruxweld.com/blog/quality-weld-inspection/
|
| TLDR: x-rays, ultrasonic testing, and liquid penetration
| tests
| aksss wrote:
| Not a welder, but I'm aware of inspection procedures that
| use gauges to determine compliance with expected "shape"
| and consistency thereof. Also, x-ray imaging of welds and
| ultrasonic inspection of welds is a thing. You said "looks
| correct" and visual inspection is a thing but there are a
| lot of facets to that visual inspection that require some
| experience and tooling (e.g. magnifying glass, lighting,
| etc).
| blakesterz wrote:
| Sometimes I miss restaurant work. I sit in front of a computer
| all day in a quiet room, it's so completely different to be on a
| line at a busy restaurant. It's loud and dangerous and hot and
| chaotic. In many ways it's the opposite of being a sysadmin. I'm
| not sure my body could take that kind of work now, but I do think
| about trying it again from time to time.
|
| I do like the concept of having Mise for us "knowledge workers"
| too.
| rcoveson wrote:
| > loud and dangerous and hot and chaotic
|
| I was a sysadmin for an on-site HPC cluster and this sounds
| familiar. Compared to a restaurant, it's probably less
| dangerous and chaotic but more loud and hot.
| itomato wrote:
| Grills & hoods and hot rows feel eerily similar, down to the
| din.
| slg wrote:
| >I'm not sure my body could take that kind of work now
|
| People who have never worked in a busy restaurant probably
| underestimate the type of toll that work takes on your body. It
| can be grueling.
| pc86 wrote:
| I worked in kitchens and as a server pretty regularly from
| about ages 16 to 22. After several back-to-back busy shifts
| my joints would hurt until I got a day off. Even at 36 now as
| I start to feel stuff ache a little more often and a little
| more acutely, it was different then. It's easy to see how
| decades of that kind of work can really take a toll on your
| body.
| mamborambo wrote:
| A very good read, and indeed "mise-en-place" is a skill /
| philosophy / system which can greatly assist knowledge workers if
| they apply it. Most chefs learn how when they apprentice under a
| master chef, and adopt or copy what they do. These skills are
| seldom learned by reading a book or from an essay, because they
| need to become habits to be effective.0p
| Zababa wrote:
| > There is no class in college on how to triage your email inbox,
| manage your agenda, or organize your computer files.
|
| Small nitpick, having to organize your computer files is mostly a
| consequence of Windows having a terrible and ineffective search.
| I recently realized that I don't really need to organize stuff in
| folders on Linux since I use meaningful names when I store files,
| and search when I retrieve them. On Windows, the search is
| unusable, and thus I spend a lot of time making a hierarchy of
| categories with folders, which is a waste of time. To use the
| kitchen analogy, the first time you use a good search is like the
| first time you use a good knife. It changes the way you approach
| things. I eat way more vegetables since now cutting them isn't a
| pain.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| How is search better on Linux? KDE's Baloo is worse than
| Windows Search; it's an unending trainwreck of failing to index
| files (whether names or contents) on some computers and going
| stale on other computers. Maybe GNOME's file indexing is
| better, I'm not sure. Do you use the (non-index-based) find and
| grep CLI commands? In that case you can install them on Windows
| too, or install fd/rg on both Windows and Linux.
| Zababa wrote:
| > How is search better on Linux? KDE's Baloo is worse than
| Windows Search; it's an unending trainwreck of failing to
| index files (whether names or contents) on some computers and
| going stale on other computers. Maybe GNOME's file indexing
| is better, I'm not sure.
|
| I use Gnome and it works well. I'd say it's how I expect a
| search to work, at least.
|
| I think search could be even better with ways to index other
| informations. For example, search into the metadata of audio
| files. My dream is to have something as good as Google in its
| prime, but for my own files. I'm still thinking on how to
| reduce the need for the user to produce metadata. For now,
| the "best" we can usually do is try to give files descriptive
| names and then search for it, which is good but still very
| limited to how the web works for example.
|
| > Do you use the (non-index-based) find and grep CLI
| commands? In that case you can install them on Windows too,
| or install fd/rg on both Windows and Linux.
|
| There are also tools to replace the search on Windows, but
| most people will never install those. My comment was more
| general, about how lots of people have been trained to not
| rely on search because the basic search in their files is
| broken. Maybe a consequence of this is that people have a
| resistance to search, which would explain why so many of them
| have trouble using a search engine by themselves. It's also a
| waste of human time, an enormous one.
| mywacaday wrote:
| I think you just hit the nail on the head why I spend so much
| time storing and organising in onenote, I always thought it was
| because onenote search is good, it's not, it's because the
| system search is so poor.
| nlawalker wrote:
| voidtools' Everything (https://www.voidtools.com/) is one of
| the first things I install on a new Windows system.
| Instantaneous filename search.
| whytaka wrote:
| This may seem obsessive-compulsive to others but the way I work
| on the computer, I close everything that I'm not immediately
| working on. No extra tabs, no bystander applications. I keep my
| desktop completely plain so that the only files I see are the
| ones I just produced/downloaded.
|
| I would rather go through the pain of reopening apps/websites
| than to have it lingering when I don't need it right then.
|
| I don't understand how people can have multiple windows of
| multiple browsers with multiple tabs open about things they
| aren't working on while they work. The visual clutter overwhelms
| me quickly.
| codyb wrote:
| I do the same thing. I think it's why I've ended up in a
| primarily terminal based environment. Tmux, Vim, and Zsh and a
| couple web browsers and I'm good to go. Very little clutter.
|
| I also like to go through and clear house when I have several
| tabs open.
|
| It's a very pleasant way to work.
| leokennis wrote:
| I almost physically cringe when for example I see people
| searching for the super important cost estimation of a project
| and finding it as "/Documents/documents/docs/Old Stuff/work/New
| Folder (1)/Amy/work/migration/temp18/excel/team/DO NOT
| DELETE/e.xlsx"
| SN76477 wrote:
| I work similar to this.
|
| I think you have inspired me to go full on with it.
| georgeam wrote:
| I think I obtain a lot of the benefits of focus without quite
| being this extreme. I use a lot of virtual desktops. One
| virtual desktop per logical activity. For example as a student
| it would be one desktop per course I'm studying. As a software
| engineer, each git-repo that I touch gets its own virtual
| desktop (especially when one application involves many git
| repos). Each virtual desktop has its own editor process,
| terminal, and browser window for documentation and tabs related
| to that activity only. This means I can change my focus just by
| switching to another virtual desktop. And the tabs and editors
| and such on other desktops are not visible (they are not even
| in the panel) while I'm not working on them. So unlike you, I
| have _lots_ of bystander applications, and each one is exactly
| where I left it. They just aren 't visible until I switch to
| that activity. So I would argue that they don't distract me at
| all.
|
| I also have things set up so that there is a keystroke that
| raises the editor on the current desktop to the top. Another
| for the browser and another for the terminal. When I switch to
| another desktop, the same keystroke raises a different editor
| process for that desktop, etc. So within a desktop, I switch
| between these apps using the same keystrokes regardless of
| which desktop I am on. And there is only one way to switch
| desktop. I can't switch to another desktop via choosing another
| application on another desktop, because the other applications
| that are not on the current desktop are completely invisible.
|
| When I'm working on something with a Scala backend, an Elm
| frontend, and C/C++ embedded device, and when I need to go back
| and forth often between these sub-applications making related
| changes, I can't afford to close and reopen each one when I
| change the language/repo. I can change desktops very often this
| way. eg. Add a new field to the frontend. Immediately add it to
| the backend and the embedded also. But they are in different
| repos. etc. etc.
|
| If I have one editor opening all three projects it is a
| nightmare to navigate between files. But one editor for each
| language and repo is the sweet spot for me. And it means my
| documentation for Elm is all in a separate browser window from
| my documentation for Scala (which is on another desktop) etc
| etc.
|
| Sorry this was so long, but I think all the details add up to
| making it an efficient system.
| reddit_clone wrote:
| Yes! I started a very similar process just this week.
|
| Some of us have no choice but to multitask. I just learned
| about multiple desktops in Mac OS X and using something very
| similar to what you just described.
|
| Each desktop gets its own browser window, emacs frame, Iterm
| window and a sticky. Sticky says what was the last thing I
| did and what is next. So context switching is easier.
|
| I keep Outlook and Slack on a second monitor always visible.
| So far I am liking it. I am dreading the inevitable reboot.
|
| I also wish Apple supported renaming the virtual desktops.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| > I don't understand how people can have multiple windows of
| multiple browsers with multiple tabs open about things they
| aren't working on while they work. The visual clutter
| overwhelms me quickly.
|
| Well, multitasking was all the rage not so long ago. A lot of
| people got bombarded with blog posts and articles about it.
| draw_down wrote:
| Same here. If I'm not using it it's gone. If I need it for
| later I'll save it somehow. My computer should have very little
| local state. Losing a window with dozens of tabs shouldn't be
| some devastating loss. If it's important save it.
| t0mbstone wrote:
| I'm a big fan of the one-touch inbox zero flow, although the way
| I do it is slightly different.
|
| I have four folders that I organize all incoming email into:
|
| 1. Requires Reply
|
| 2. Requires Action
|
| 3. Keep Eyes On
|
| Anything that doesn't immediately fall into one of these
| categories gets archived. Any email newsletters are immediately
| unsubscribed from (with the exception of Ruby Weekly and Python
| Weekly).
|
| I also use a lot of automated filters/rules for applying
| organizational labels to different emails.
| joshuaheard wrote:
| I use @Action, @Bills, and @Waiting. It if takes less than 2
| minutes, I do it immediately upon receipt. Otherwise it goes
| into the Action folder. I use @ in front of the folder name so
| it's at the top of my subfolder list.
| mcbishop wrote:
| The author's PARA method for organizing / structuring digital
| info is helping me a lot. It gives me a solid bedrock.
| https://fortelabs.co/blog/para/
| bob1029 wrote:
| I started seeing the value of this ideology recently. I have a
| really strict routine before I write a single line of code on a
| complex issue. All of these ways of thinking ultimately came out
| of efficiency gains I learned on my own in the kitchen. Prepare,
| then work. Trying to prepare while you work is chaos (but
| sometimes essential).
|
| The very first thing I do after finishing a design review
| narrative is to type up a list of discrete tasks that I plan to
| execute. These don't necessarily say what to do line-by-line, but
| draw out a very clear picture of what code areas are edited and
| what the dependency graphs look like. These also highlight
| specific configuration or other UX points to reference during
| testing. These task lists are specific enough that other
| developers could reliably execute them without any additional
| guidance.
|
| Then, I take a short break and review my task list when I return.
| 9/10 times I find I want to tweak it a little bit.
|
| After the final confirmation, I sent notification out to my team
| that I intend to execute the task listing so they have a super
| clear idea of what functionality to expect on the other side.
|
| I have found that this reduces my anxiety/stress by orders of
| magnitude throughout the day. Starting with visual studio and
| fumbling around various parts of the code base might be a good
| way to get your brain warmed up in the morning, but its certainly
| not a rational way to go about solving a complex problem.
|
| For trivial issues, production RCAs, etc., the process is
| certainly a little bit more streamlined than what I note above.
| This is more about how to do work on big tasks.
| hinkley wrote:
| I help a lot of people in a given week, and my browser tabs are
| out of control. What has helped a lot for me is opening all of
| the tabs for a particular issue in a new window, and often
| putting them as the only thing on my smallest monitor is a
| decent compromise for not losing it. Once I minimize that
| window it gets lost quickly, which also contributes to the tabs
| problem. Still need to solve that issue.
|
| To a lesser extent, the smart location bar for Firefox at least
| will tell you if you already have that url open elsewhere,
| which saves me from abandoned/divergent wiki edits and lost
| workflows. Not always, but routinely for sure. It also can
| search your bookmarks, so tagging things with the name you
| _think_ they should have helps a lot there. Now if I could just
| get better at deleting malformed urls from my history...
|
| Except for the single window piece, these aren't exactly 'mis-
| en-place'. They're more second-order effects, akin to putting
| the common ingredients on the "right" shelf, so you can grab
| them quicker. The invisible ingredient in 'mis-en-place' is
| your head. If that's a mess at the beginning of the task then
| everything will be off. So you can 'mis' all you want but if
| you run an obstacle course to get there it's going to help but
| not as much as it could. Like showing up to a race tired.
| murphm8 wrote:
| I would recommend Simple Tab Groups [1] for Firefox. Then you
| can have as many sets of tabs you want (with detailed names),
| that are backed up in case of crashes etc. They are also out
| of the way when you don't need them, no managing multiple
| windows. Easy to delete groups, or keep them for later.
|
| [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-
| tab-gr...
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