How to Plan When You Don't Have Time
What chefs can teach us about managing time
Clack-clack-clack.
It’s 7:15 PM on a Friday night in a high-end commercial kitchen. The ticket machine is spitting out orders faster than the printer can handle. Pans are clashing, flames are roaring, and the heat is rising.
It looks like total chaos.
But if you look at the head chef, there is zero panic.
They aren't frantically running around searching for a missing spatula. They aren't pausing to wonder what to chop next. They move with steady, fluid precision—even as the shift explodes around them.
Now, compare that to your typical Tuesday morning as a manager.
You walk in, coffee in hand, planning to sit down and finally map out your week. But before your bag hits the chair, an employee calls out sick, a customer is upset, and an urgent email lands in your inbox.
Suddenly, you’re firefighting. Before you know it, it’s 4:00 PM, you’re exhausted, and that "planning session" never happened.
When I talk with site leaders, managers, and business owners, the most common frustration I hear is: "Jen, I just don't have time to plan."
And I get it. Trying to build a strategic plan in the middle of the day feels like trying to listen to GPS while lost in a hurricane. But chefs know a secret about managing time that corporate leaders often miss:
Planning is not an hour-long event. It is a habit.
Direct Takeaway for Busy Leaders: When you don't have time to plan, stop trying to schedule 60-minute strategy blocks. Instead, use mise en place: prep one priority task on a sticky note at the end of the day, pre-portion large projects into micro-tasks, and clear your digital desktop before you start work.
The kitchen secret to time management for managers
During my time running national operational rollouts for Starbucks across more than 12,000 stores, we couldn't press "pause" on everything just to figure out our day. We relied on a concept chefs have used for centuries to survive the dinner rush: Mise en place.
Translating literally to "everything in its place," mise en place isn't just about chopping onions in advance. It’s a behavioral system. What I learned while doing research for my upcoming leadership development series that teaches managers and business owners the leadership skills they need to be successful using the kitchen as the classroom is that chefs don't plan during the rush. They prepare their environment in micro-bursts before the rush hits.
Here is how you can use mise en place for practical time management for managers, taking back your day without needing hours of quiet time.
Practice the 5-minute "Station Prep"
Stop trying to map out your entire week while things are crazy. It’s overwhelming and unrealistic. Instead, dedicate just five minutes at the very end of your workday to prep for tomorrow.
Identify the single non-negotiable task that must get done tomorrow. Write it on a sticky note and stick it directly on your laptop keyboard.
When you open your laptop the next morning, your inbox doesn't dictate your priorities. Your primary target is already prepped, plated, and waiting for you.
"Pre-portion" your heaviest tasks
A line cook doesn't try to butcher a whole side of beef in the middle of dinner service. That would be absurd. Yet that is exactly what you try to do when you decide to write an entire strategic plan mid-week.
Line cooks pre-portion steaks into individual servings before the doors open.
Apply that exact logic to your work. When facing a massive project—like updating SOPs, mapping out a change-management strategy, or writing performance reviews—do not block off three hours on your calendar. You won't find those three hours.
Break the project into bite-sized portions:
Write three bullet points today.
Draft one paragraph tomorrow.
Finalize the document on Thursday.
This is exactly how I manage collaborating, writing, and delivering my training programs. I was exactly like you when I started. I would block off Tuesday afternoon to write an entire training program. Then when the time arose, something else seemed more important or, honestly, I lost my inspiration.
I sat there wasting time, distracting myself, and feeling frustrated. At the end of the day, I had little to nothing to show for those hours of “work.” This led to working late nights and weekends.
It also limited how much work I could take on.
Now I have systems in place. I break down my projects into small deliverables that all map to the final delivery. That way I can be fully present with my groups as we talk about time management, DISC, or AI.
Clear "your station" before you start work
A cluttered workspace slows a chef down. Twenty open browser tabs and endless desktop notifications do the exact same thing to your brain. You cannot lead effectively when visual noise is competing for your attention.
Before you start your priority task, clear the line. Close every application, mute your chat notifications, and minimize every document except the single tool you need right now.
If you are having separation anxiety, remember it isn’t for the whole day, just a short time. I’m sure in most cases, your response in 45 minutes will be sufficient. If you do have something urgent, then give yourself micro-breaks just to check in on that, then get back to your task.
Simple steps for managing time on your next “shift”
Effective leadership isn't about implementing complex systems or finding invisible blocks of extra time. It’s about executing tiny, intentional prep steps.
When you shift your perspective from "finding time to plan" to "prepping your station," daily operational fires lose their power. You regain control of your schedule, your team gets a steady coach, and you get to leave work at work.
Your 5-Minute Challenge Today:
Don't wait until Monday. Before you close your laptop today, do your 5-minute station prep. Write your single focus for tomorrow on a sticky note and put it on your keyboard. See how much smoother tomorrow's rush feels.
P.S. What is the single non-negotiable task sitting on your desk right now that needs to be pre-portioned? Reply and let me know—I read every message!
Comments