The monks’ new system of preparing meals at the Monastery is quick, silent, and above all fun! Here’s how it goes: the kitchen coordinator for the week looks at the menu for the day and writes out a list of tasks for the other monks to do in order of priority. Each monk approaches the list and takes the next available task, initials it, and then proceeds to carry it out. On some days it’s as simple as putting salad dressings on the dining room table, and on others it’s “make the soup for tonight”! They never know what their assignment will be – which is a big part of the fun (and the practice opportunity if conditioning concludes it is NOT!)
The coordinator also consolidates processes that make cooking more efficient. For example, if toasted nuts are needed for a salad at one meal and bread at another, the job may be to toast all of the nuts at once. This saves much dishwashing time and cuts down on traffic in the kitchen. It takes a recipe-focused view of the kitchen into a menu-focused view and really speeds up the whole shebang. This method was used at the Santa Sabina retreat and turned the kitchen into a symphony orchestra!
We suspect that this would be effective in just about any area of work. Try sitting down at night for 15-minutes and lay out a list for yourself of what you want and need to do the following day in the order it needs to be done, and take this method for a test whirl. Let us know what your experience was!
Gasshō,
Alex