#24. Can Cooking Improve Your Work Skills!? ~5 Great Elements as I See Them~

Good evening!
This is Kokichi, currently bewildered by my son's sudden fever.
I had a nursery school interview this afternoon, but...
he suddenly developed a fever around noon...
I had heard that "children get fevers suddenly,"
but it really is sudden, haha.
I have to resign myself to the fact that this will happen more often from now on.
Currently, I am using temporary childcare 12 times a month,
and he will officially enroll starting in April.

Now, for this theme,
I would like to share the idea: [Doesn't cooking improve your work skills?]
Currently, in our home,

I am in charge of my son's breakfast, his nursery school lunch box,
and dinner.
To be precise, there is no such thing as being "in charge" in our house,
but since my wife's work takes quite a bit of time,
it feels more like I am "handling it."
Our stance on housework is "whoever can do it,
does it."

I had been cooking a little bit even before my son was born,
but since he was born, it's been a battle against time! Within limited time,

・Fast (make it in time for the usual dinner time)・Cheap (using cheap ingredients on sale)
・Tasty (well, as long as it's edible, it's okay)
I need to ensure these.
I wasn't able to do this from the start either,
I have been refining my skills while being properly coached by a demon coach.
Even things like how to place the kitchen knife...
(↑ Is this a school?!)
But, humans do get used to things.

Little by little, I've gotten the hang of it.
And at one point, I thought this.

"Practicing how to cook efficiently will likely lead to improved work skills..."

At first glance, they seem unrelated,
"Cooking" and "Work"

In this article, I will introduce what kind of work skills are trained through cooking,
and which cooking processes they correspond to.
This is just
what Kokichi thinks,so it is not absolute.Still, if you are a little curious, please take a look.

1. Planning skills are trained

First, planning skills. This means deciding the menu.
The battle of cooking begins before you even stand in the kitchen.
"What should I make today...?"
Avoiding recent menu items, while considering the season, temperature,
physical condition, and events, I think about the needs (what the family wants to eat).
The task of thinking about a cooking menu, it is no exaggeration to call this "planning."

2. Schedule management is acquired

In work, there is a "deadline" to complete things by.
For example, the deadline in cooking is the time you start eating.
For dinner, I think you often make several dishes.
Making them one by one takes too much time, so you end up making them in parallel,
but to ensure all dishes can be eaten at the same time,
you need to work while checking the timing and progress of each dish.

"Ah! I forgot to cook the rice!"

This is an example of human error caused by neglecting schedule management.

3. Awareness of task prioritization is born

For example, today's dinner menu (side dishes) is
・Simmered daikon radish (Furofuki daikon)
・Bean sprout and spinach namul
・Grilled fish (salmon fillet)
Which one do you start with?
I don't know the absolute correct answer, but the likely correct one is "Furofuki daikon."
Because it takes the most time.
It's just my feeling, but if you simmer it normally in a pot,
it takes over 2 hours, and even in an electric pressure cooker, it takes 1 hour.
The other two dishes can be finished while the daikon is simmering.
Despite that, if you start them last,
it will take the cooking time for the 2 dishes + 2 hours. It is very inefficient.

Now, one more example,
this time we are making "Kinpira Gobo" (braised burdock root).
The ingredients are carrots, burdock root, and toasted sesame seeds.
Which ingredient do you start with?
I don't know the absolute correct answer, but "burdock root" is likely correct.
Because you perform lye removal after cutting it.
Processing the carrots can be done while the burdock root is soaking.
In this way, cooking has waiting times depending on the ingredient processing method and cooking method,
and there is occupation time for pots, cutting boards, and cooking utensils depending on the process.
To work efficiently so that these losses do not occur, you always need to acquire a sense of "prioritization."
Prioritization is the basis of work, isn't it?

However, there is a point that is most different, so be careful.
Business books often say to process tasks that can be completed immediately first!
But in home cooking, it is the opposite.
Start with the one that takes the most time,
and make other dishes in the meantime.
I definitely want to keep this in mind.

4. Growing daily through trial and error

Eating the finished dish,
・The taste is too light or too strong
・The taste is too sweet or too spicy
・The ingredients are too hard or too soft
・The ingredients are burnt or undercooked
Accidents like these happen sometimes, but there is always a cause for them.

The thickness of the ingredients, heating time, amount of seasoning, etc.,
there are various influencing factors.
Just like at work, investigate the cause of the defect,
think of countermeasures, and apply them next time.
In cooking as well, by repeating "trial and error,"
I think you grow, and the perfection of the masterpiece increases day by day.

5. Communication activation

This is a bit different from the above, but
since I started cooking, I feel that opportunities to "consult" with older female colleagues at work (who have children)
about menus or shopping have increased.
"How do you think about menus?"
"What did you feed your children at this age?"
I was able to interact with people I don't usually interact with at work.
Like SNS, there are many people all over the world who post with the theme of "cooking."
By dabbling in this field, your world might expand.
(That might be a bit of an exaggeration, haha)

Finally

How was it?
I can't deny that it feels a bit forced,
but isn't it not too far off?
I would be happy if you thought, "Indeed!"
If you have any opinions like, "Hmm, isn't this different?"
I'm waiting for your comments.

And finally, I have a request.
This is a request for those who have their partner cook for them
on a daily basis.

*A request to those who have someone cook for them*

I don't know if this applies to everyone in charge of cooking, but there is a process I really struggle with when it comes to cooking.
That is deciding the daily menu.
I believe the person cooking is thinking about not just the nutritional balance of each meal, but also the content of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and ensuring the menu for the whole week doesn't repeat.
Therefore, the common phrases

"Anything is fine"
"Something simple is fine"

are nonsense. (I've said them too, though...)

Up until now, I've compared each step of cooking to work, but this statement is, so to speak,

the same as performing tasks without any direction from a supervisor.
Without knowing what the family wants to eat,

(no market research, no management philosophy) using ingredients bought at the supermarket or left in the fridge,


(procuring supplies without knowing the demand or organizing inventory)
cooking silently until the vaguely decided dinner time,
(proceeding with work without clear direction and meeting a rough deadline without progress checks)


having the cooked meal eaten somehow
(no significant feedback on the delivered product or service)

If you were to say something like
"Huh, is dinner fish today? ...I wanted meat"
after all that, it would be unbearable.

Translation (Ugh, why did you go ahead and start that project on your own? If you were going to do it, you should have prioritized this task~)
↑ Told beforehand that any task was fine

If I had a boss like that, I might accidentally strangle them.
In fact, it is much easier to cook when there is a request compared to when I have to think of a menu from scratch.

(Is it just me?)
Since there are aptitudes for the role of being in charge of cooking, I definitely don't think everyone should be able to do it.
However, please occasionally make a request for

the food you want to eat

, and tell the person who cooked for you, "Dinner today is delicious."
. If no one appreciates the hard work you've done, your motivation will drop, right?I think it's the same situation.

Also, the phrase often said in the summer,
"Somen noodles are fine"

I won't say much more, but please convert this to
"I'd like somen noodles"
when you tell them.

Let's protect our own dining tables ourselves!
Thank you very much.

※ The example above is not about my own home.
(This is fiction)
Thank you for reading until the end.

It encourages me to update, so if you thought
it actually feels like my work skills might improve...
, please give it a like.If you'd like, please follow me too. (It ended up being a super long post, sweat)

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This time, I'm focusing on work skills, not cooking... and introducing this person! She is someone I personally imagine every day, "This person must be great at their job."

Ikeda-san
She is in her 20s and works in sales.
Just being in sales makes her seem capable, but she also studied abroad in the UK and can speak English.
What an amazing talent! Ikeda-san's articles give me the impression that she thinks about things from various perspectives, not just as a company employee.
Her thinking is deep, or rather, I, Kokichi, who is around 30, am stimulated every day by thinking, "Oh, she sees the world from that perspective."