I’m getting ready to make a presentation to a fairly large group, one that I had offered to make some weeks ago and have been refining since. (I want to use a theater phrase in my intro that simply won’t come to the forefront of my mind, but that is a story for another time.) I enjoy presenting (remind me I said that just minutes before I go on, would you?), and like to be prepared – shooting for that sweet spot where it can be interesting and clear without seeming practiced.
Anyway, I wanted to go into Chicago to the Lit Fest to watch other presenters and got my son interested by showing him the list of activities in the Good Eating tent. I have cooked since my pre-teens and occasionally managed to do it well, but I have learned much more about the art of cooking since he became interested a few years ago. It is his interest that brought me to 
the French phrase in the title, which literally means everything in its place, relating to completing all prep work before actually starting on a recipe. (You know when the chef just easily pours this little bowlful or that into the big bowl and tells the audience what is in the bowl.)
Put in terms for the rest of us:
“Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.”
~A.A. Milne
The carpenter who takes care of his tools and puts each one carefully back into a dedicated section of his tool box after wiping it clean from each use spends more time on the actual carpentry, purportedly the part of his (or her) work that is most enjoyable. The same for the cook, and the office worker.
Not liking to do the clerical filing type tasks of keeping templates, manuals, etc. in the proper place means spending more time thinking about them and searching for them, in the meantime possibly losing the stream of the project or idea that is your actual task.
Our skill at managing these thankless mise en place tasks deeply affects our effectiveness at the tasks we were really hired to complete.
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