Actors’ Time Management is Important

TIME MANAGEMENT

Hi! Welcome back to “Little Fish in a Big Pond,” by Lizzie Maxwell.

Today’s “Little Fish” article is about our “Time Management”

So many actors waste so much time for reasons unknown. A serious actor will do something every day for his career. He or she will be out there pounding the pavement, sending out photos and resumes, making appropriate phone calls, and networking at places where industry people hang out (the studio commissaries, coffee shops, Starbucks, cigar pubs, night clubs, restaurants, bars). It’s not that hard to get on a studio lot. Most of the time you can say you are making a delivery or you need to drop off a photo. Be discreet, be professional. Even guards at the gates can read you if you are nervous.

You have to work for a living which should take 30 to 40 hours of your 168 hour week. That leaves you with approximately 128 hours. Of those hours, 3-6 per week should be spent in acting classes, 10 of those can be spent running errands and transporting yourself from place to place, let’s give you 20 for leisure time, 50 for sleep, which leaves you about 40 hours that you have per week to spend on your career. You can move the numbers anyway you’d like but it’s important to have a game plan, each and every week as to what you’re going to do for yourself.

Sample Game Plan for the Week

Sunday: Plan your week. Go to the gym. Take it easy. Call some friends. Watch Sean Connery movie. Study Sean Connery acting in the movie. Smell the coffee.

Monday: Follow up last week’s stuff. Have coffee at Dupar’s or Starbucks. Send out some photos. Reassess. See a movie. Study the acting.

Tuesday: Gym. Work. Send out more postcards to a few casting agents. Start searching for a new agent. Post office, buy stamps. Buy envelopes. Acting class.

Wednesday: Work day job. Gym. Send out more postcards. See theatre tonight or a movie. Study acting. Read a classic. Network with others.

Thursday: Buy Backstage West-Drama-Logue. Submit for independent films, T.V., and theatre. Day job. Network. Drop off photos at a show you’re right for.

Friday: Follow through on any contracts you’ve made this week. Network tonight. Go to a happy hour at a popular hangout. They’re not that hard to find depending on what you’re into.

Saturday: Audition for a play. See friends. Finish anything you haven’t. do your laundry. Go out on a date. See a movie or play.

Thank you for joining Actors Reporter for this article of Little Fish in a Big Pond by Lizzie Maxwell.
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