Set your mise en place before the heat goes on

Why this rule exists

Mise en place, everything in its place, is the single habit that most reliably turns frantic cooking into calm cooking. Once a pan is hot, the clock runs at the pan's speed, not yours, and that is a terrible time to be mincing garlic or hunting for the cumin. Fat scorches, garlic burns, onions pass from soft to bitter in the seconds you spend fumbling. When every ingredient is measured, chopped, and waiting in its own little bowl, cooking becomes assembly: you add, you stir, you watch, instead of prepping and cooking at once and doing neither well. The professionals do this not because they are fussy but because it is the only way to cook fast food without ruining it.

In practice

Do all your reading, washing, peeling, chopping, and measuring first, while nothing is on the heat and there is no time pressure. Line the components up in the order they go into the pan, so your hand reaches for the next thing without thinking. Small bowls, a cutting board, and a clear counter are all you need. Group the things that go in together into one bowl to keep the count of grabs low. Only when everything is staged, and you have re-read the first cooking step, do you turn on the burner. From there you are conducting, not scrambling.

Example

1. Aromatics bowl: garlic, ginger, scallion whites
2. Protein bowl: sliced, dried, seasoned
3. Vegetables bowl: cut same size, hardest first
4. Sauce jar: soy, stock, sugar, cornstarch — mixed
5. Finishers: scallion greens, sesame oil
Everything within arm's reach BEFORE the wok is hot

When it doesn't apply

A slow braise or a soup with long gaps forgives prepping as you go, since there is time between steps to catch up. And for a simple one-pan dinner you cook nightly, full staging can be overkill. The rule earns its keep most in fast, high-heat cooking where seconds matter.