Went from hating prep work to actually looking forward to it after a shift in Dallas last month

I used to dread coming in early to dice onions and peel shrimp. It felt like busy work until the sous chef at this steakhouse in Dallas showed me how he times his knife cuts to the rhythm of the music playing. He said it makes the repetitive stuff feel like a game. Now I throw on some old Motown and my prep speed doubled in two weeks. Anybody else find weird mental tricks to get through the boring parts of the shift?

2 comments

2 Comments

coleman.jamie1mo agoTop Commenter

That's really interesting because it points to a bigger truth about how we handle things we don't want to do. Most folks fight against the boring parts of the day, which just makes them feel longer and harder. The trick is finding a way to make the work itself the focus, not the clock. Your sous chef figured out that if you turn a chore into a rhythm or a little game, your brain stops complaining about the time it's taking. Same thing happens with folding laundry or washing dishes at home. Once you stop treating it as a punishment and start treating it as a simple task you can get good at, it stops feeling like a drag.

wren_rodriguez1mo ago

That bit about "making the work itself the focus, not the clock" really hit home. I used to dread doing the dishes because I'd just stare at the clock the whole time. Then I started timing myself to see how fast I could get the whole pile done, like it was some kind of race against my own best time. Now I almost look forward to it, just to see if I can beat yesterday's record.