Radio show, Edit Video, Do show reel, edit show reel, busk, cruising follow up work, restaurant follow up work, talk on American music, emails, phone calls, apply for auditions, prep for auditions, do auditions, keep events up t to date, blog, newsletter, learn new rep., learn more monologues, find a new agent, network, re-edit voice reel, concert, sing in artist house, follow up on concert/cd for NMB, excetra, excetra...
So how am I suppose to do all this on low or no pay?! That doesn't include any of my own personal interests or goals, which would be a list equally as long.
I thought when I finished my acting course I would be twiddling my thumbs, but the reality is quite different. I'm, now, under a mountain of admin. and wondering does it ever get less or easier?
I've done the time management courses and I'm doing my 'mind mapping' to try and keep on course, but I'm the worlds worst for giving myself a complete day off. I just think... I'll just check my emails and then I'm off sorting some sort of problem or moving some project further a long.
Things I'd like to change:
- check email once a day!
- phone people back within a week, doesn't have to always be the next day
- book days off in the diary and really do them
- tea/lunch/tea/dinner breaks
- stop after so many hours of work
- do 1 thing for an hour, then walk around the room or something, so I stop doing once thing for hours
- delegate whenever possible
- lunch with a friend - once a week
- slim things down, get rid of deadwood faster
I'm hoping that now I've written it out, it'll start to happen in reality. No human being can do everything I ask myself to do. If you have any good pointers, please point them at me!
Just read this:
Acting methods can help with presentation and leadership skills. No surprise there! What surprised us was that they teach you not only to communicate TO others - but to be responsive to communications FROM others. The skill lies in being able to be acutely aware of all that is going on around you and respond immediately, appropriately and authentically. The techniques to develop these skills are NOT about delivering a speech - much more about developing your sense of awareness and ability to respond.
So, how can we apply these skills to everyday life? Here is one example. A recent client had been particularly busy. He was looking for ways to help him keep his eye on everything that was going on in his team. He was thinking about practical techniques like keeping lists (which work for some but not others). Instead, we looked at an acting technique (which is also useful when presenting to groups). Imagine you are in a room with many people. Imagine one of those people is going to throw a ball to you - and you want to be ready to catch it. One way of doing that is to keep looking at each person in turn. That is unlikely to be successful - you will probably be looking at someone on your left when a person on the right throws the ball. Another approach is to soften your gaze - allow your awareness to expand outwards. With practice you will become sensitive to slight movements and changes of energy in any part of your gaze - which increases your ability to respond. Try it.
So, back to our client - what he had been trying to do was to focus on each of the myriad things which needed attention - exhausting! Instead, he tried sitting up, softening his gaze and allowing his awareness to expand outwards to cover all the things which needed to be done. Not only did it help keep awareness on the whole range of things to be done - holding a soft gaze helps the body relax. Try it and you will notice that your shoulders naturally drop and your breathing slows down. It stops that frenzied feeling of having too much to do.
I'm softening right now.... See ya later!
