Sleep in Your Own Guest Room!

“Emily Post had very high standards for guest rooms and thought every hostess should be obliged to spend twenty-four hours now and then in her own to better understand its strengths and deficiencies. Is the lighting adequate? Are there enough blankets?” Rules for Visiting Jessica Francis Kane

Simple in execution yet layered in complexity, I’ve read and reread this quote several times, extracting meanings and lessons.

Emily Post’s suggestion is to stay in your own guest room in order to have the experience that your guest would have. Maybe you discover that the way the light shines in when the sun comes up is too bright. Perhaps the placement of the end tables does not allow a guest to plug anything in with ease. Or the shelves in the closet make it difficult to put away luggage. By being your own guest, you’ll experience the room the same way you experience the rooms you live in, with insight on areas for improvement.

Similarly, when Ruth Reichl was a guest on Dan Ahdoot’s podcast, Green Eggs & Dan, she said her biggest restaurant pet peeve is when the height of the chairs or booths relative to the height of the table are a mismatch. We’ve all been there, with our elbows resting on a bar at shoulder level because the stools were too low or our knees hitting the underside of the table because the booth is too high for the table. She says it often feels as though the restaurant owners never sat at the table themselves.

Another memory is of a Top Chef episode where a chef served soup shooters in shot glasses. The recipe was conceived, executed, and plated. But the chef didn’t have the opportunity to try the dish in the vessel it was being served in. The soup left a lot of residue on the shot glass, making it look very visually unappealing once finished.

Why does this happen? Whenever we plan, whether it be the layout of a guest room, the furniture in our kitchens, or dishes for a dinner party, we’re in the theoretical phase of our plan or project. It is not until we move into execution that the plan comes to life. The guest room gets slept in. The diners eat at the restaurant. The Top Chef judges sip the soup. No matter how great your plan is, you often can’t see its flaws until you execute it.

What can you do though? Your guest already stayed over. The tables at the restaurant are already set up. The Top Chef judges already ate the soup. You can’t turn back time.

You have two options available to you:

Option 1: Bake in some simulation to your planning phase.

Did you know that kids practice taking the bus to school so that they are accustomed to the ride before the actual school year starts? You might not be a kid, but you might need some similar simulations. Do a yoga class at home before attending one live. Set your dining room table for six even though it is just you eating so you can see what the table centerpiece looks like before your party. Book the same conference room that your big presentation is in so you can practice in the environment you’ll be in.

A great simulation example is in Ocean’s Eleven, where they set up a replica of the casino! You may not have the resources that Danny Ocean has, but you get the idea.

Option 2: Analyze your project after execution to extract learnings for the future.

You may not have the luxury to simulate or test out every scenario before executing. I used to prepare dinner recipes once for myself before executing the recipe for a dinner party, but since cooking is something I only mildly enjoy, I don’t want to invest the time to cook it twice. Instead, every time I cook, I analyze the outcome so I can learn more about myself as a cook, extracting my strengths and weaknesses and applying those learnings to the next dinner party.

Plans are inherently limited and their flaws often remain hidden until the plan is put into execution. But a little simulation can go a long way. And should we not have the luxury of time to test, we can always learn from our mistakes. So, sleep in your guest room tonight. Take note of your seating experience at your next restaurant outing. Plate your dinner and observe what it looks like before and after.

Whether it’s a guest room or a grand plan, the best way to refine your work is to live in it — to sit at the table, sleep in the bed, and test the theory before others do.