Planners

Getting Organized Column
BackStage, December 2005
topic: choosing and using a planner

Choosing a Planner
By Kristine Oller

Your scene partner asks if you’ll go to her stand-up gig on Saturday night. You see no notation in your portable planner indicating another commitment, so you say yes. Later on you realize you just gave away your last free Saturday night of the month. Had you known that, you might have thought twice about promising to attend. When you get home, you discover that, according to the calendar on the kitchen wall, you’ve already accepted an invitation to a wedding shower that very same Saturday night. What now?

An actor’s life is a constant whirlwind of scheduling and rescheduling. People often assume actors are “flakes” because the timing of auditions and bookings require frequent last-minute cancellations and postponements. Add to those circumstances any personal disorganization – being late, losing information, forgetting things, double-scheduling – and you are not only reinforcing the stereotype but also impeding your professional progress.

Simply buying a planner and using it haphazardly isn’t enough. For a planner to become a helpful organizing tool, you must select one that best fits your style, use it consistently and maintain its accuracy.

Using One

A planner has two main purposes. The first is to store details about your activities so your brain doesn’t have to. Relying on your brain to remember and remind you about bits of info and multiple to-do’s generates stress. Is your brain constantly juggling where you should be and what you should be doing? If so, I doubt there is much peace or space available in there for you to relax, think and create. The more info you can get out of your head and into your planner, the freer you will feel.

“But once stuff is out of my brain and buried in my planner I will forget all about it,” you might say. That’s possible – unless you develop the habit of planning, recording and reviewing your activities on a regular basis.

The second purpose of a planner is to help you decide and track how you use your time. To make decisions about how to use your free time, you need a clear idea of how much free time you have. When you get your planner for the new year, pencil in your existing commitments: your job schedule, your class schedule, and your family schedule, plus special occasions and holidays. At the start of each week, sit with your planner and choose how to fit your professional and personal activities into the time available that week. As the week progresses, keep your planner accurate by recording changes to your schedule as they occur. Regularly review what is coming up the next day, the next week and the next month. Use your planner to remind yourself that you can return those DVDs tomorrow when you pass Blockbuster on the way to your voice lesson.

Rather than forcing you to be rigid, your planner enables you to remain flexible and informed. Also, if you are ever audited, your planner provides important documentation of your career.

Choosing One

The goal is to find a planner that works for you. Test-drive a few until you find a good fit, but do not fall into the trap of jumping from one to another on a quest for the mythical yet nonexistent “perfect planner.” Trust me: there is no paper or electronic planner that will, once and for all, “organize your life.” Almost any planner can work if you actually use it.

You can have wall calendars to remind you of the date, but, to avoid mix-ups, record all of your activities in only one place. Thus, make sure to synch your hand-held with your desktop daily. Plan for the time commitment necessary to become facile with anything electronic. “Simple to use” always trumps “bells and whistles.” Make sure the planner provides enough room to write comfortably and legibly. Should it have pockets or sections for additional materials? Does price or aesthetics matter to you?

“Month-at-a-glance” is a must-have feature. When you are considering adding something to your schedule, you naturally check to see if the time and day are available. Equally important is understanding how each event will impact the overall context of your month: Although you are available to help your friend move on Sunday, doing so means giving up your first day off in two weeks. For paper planners, www.FranklinCovey.com and www.daytimer.com are standard, but also check out www.plannerpads.com.

Resist the temptation to ignore your planner when life is going smoothly then grab it as a crutch when things get hectic. Be proactive rather than reactive; start fresh in 2006 by selecting a tool and crafting a routine that will, in time, help get you where you want to go.

 

 

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