Mise-en-place, Activation Energy, and Better Living

 Remember activation energy from chemistry?:

Based on the work of Daniel Kahneman and others, organizations are starting to make the 'smarter' or 'better-for-you' decision the default.  Simply allowing new employees to opt out of a retirement plan rather than allowing them to opt in has an amazing effect.

In our household, we use the term mise-en-place liberally (some might say I use all words liberally but I say most people are just using words too conservatively!).  We find its utility far outweighs simply food prep or setting the table.  Dad has a big repair project? Do that mise-en-place of gathering all the tools he may need at the site of the project (sometimes days before the actual project!).  Going on a big trip?  Get those bags and must-go items gathering in a designated location.  Big test coming up?  You get it...

Recently, I needed to lose some weight* so I planned to eat a lot of salad wraps.  Thing is, when you are a hungry, it is easier to heat up some chicken nuggets or something.  So, I cut up and cleaned my lettuce in bulk ahead of time and, voila, the activation energy to eat a salad wrap was almost nil.  

The Take-Away for this post: Lower the activation energy for future you to make good decisions by doing his mis-en-place for him now.

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* being a physicist, I had two choices for this:  lower the strength of gravity or lose some mass.  I chose the latter route for simplicity's sake.