Stage managers are masters at organization and planning; it takes a lot of both to see a theatrical production to fruition. Many of the skills I use for work have a place in my every day life as well, and using them helps keep me moving through my week consciously and efficiently. I stray from using the word “productive” here because I’m trying to move away from placing the value of myself and other people on what we can “produce”. On the contrary, I use these methods to ensure that I’m achieving a balance between work and leisure; by keeping my time organized, I can make sure that I can live more freely and flexibly, with plenty of time to accomplish what I want, whether or not its work-related.
I usually only like to look at the week ahead when I can help it. When I’m actually working on a show, it is easy to get caught up in the next 4 or 6 weeks because your life is pretty much planned out for you. But when it comes to organizing my personal life around my quarantine job (shout out to all the theatre-people-turned-essential-workers), I can only bear to work with one week at a time. This, of course, is all personal preference, and if I’m being honest, it fluctuates with how I’m feeling at a particular time. I will also look at the details of my day either the night before or the morning of. The less I try to plan every minute of my day a week in advance, the less pressure I feel to get those things done. I also tend to go overboard if I plan too much in advance and I over-schedule myself, which just leads to disappointment when I ultimately can’t stick to it. I think the most important thing to remember here is, unlike when you are working on a theatrical production, you get to set the standards for yourself! Your perception of a fulfilled week, month, or life, is up to you.
prioritize…
The first step I take every week is making a list of everything I would like to get done in the next seven days. I do this on a scrap piece of paper or my phone because its not an official to-do list yet. Sometimes, I get crazy and do this for the entire month when I have a lot going on. The next thing I do with this list is that I star the items that need to get done or are non-negotiable: appointments, weekly or monthly chores, etc. Then I’ll go through the list again and make a mark next to the things that are very important and then again with things that are less important or optional. Now, you can re-write this list in order or priority, with the highest priority items at the top of the list.
I will also do something similar on a daily basis, except I use what most people call the “Big 3” method (I’m not sure who invented this method, I just know it exists) where you come up with 3 top-priority tasks you want to accomplish that day. These aren’t necessarily huge, time-consuming tasks, they are simply things that need to get done, and things that will have you feeling fulfilled at the end of the day, even if they are as simple as folding the laundry or grocery shopping.
I make a prioritized task list because I absolutely hate planning my day down to the minute, and having my weekly and daily tasks prioritized allows me to get my time organized without having to adhere to a strict schedule or feel guilty that I didn’t check everything off my to-do list. This method of a prioritized task list is used by stage managers throughout the production, even if they don’t realize they are doing it. The best example I can think of is the pre-production week checklist: a very long checklist of absolutely everything that needs to get done before rehearsals even start.
plan
Now that I’ve told you how I hate planning out my days to the minute, let me talk about how exactly I plan my days to the minute… kidding (but, only slightly). I do need to keep track of my time in a calendar of some sort, if only just to look at the structure of my week. After making my lists, I’ll go into my Google Calendar and fill in all the things that have a specific time-frame, such as my work hours and appointments. I’ll also fill in any time I’ve planned to be out of the house with friends or family, although that’s not too often these days. This just helps me grasp the structure of my week, especially right now since my work schedule is sporadic.
After I’ve got the big, important things scheduled, I take that massive task list and start assigning individual items on that list to days in my week, keeping in mind deadlines as well as available hours in the day (which is why we have a Google Calendar). I try to stick to three per day, but sometimes I end up with 4 or 5 tasks per day during a busy week.
I personally use a combination of paper and electronic planning tools because it’s what I actually use the most. I keep my weekly planner in a bullet journal because I don’t usually like the organization and fluff that comes with a pre-printed planner. I use Google Calendar specifically for time-tracking purposes; it’s great to have a to-do list, but that list is useless if you don’t carve out the time to do them. If you are more inclined to use electronic modes of planning, I would recommend checking out Notion and TeuxDeux.
You can buy my favorite bullet journal from Amazon or Walmart. You can buy a similar product from Bookshop.org and help raise money for local bookstores!
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re-evaluate
One of the most important parts of accomplishing your daily and weekly goals is to periodically re-evaluate where you are and where you want to go. As you move throughout your week, you’ll realize a task you had written down as high priority just isn’t that important and can be pushed aside for something else that is important to you, say, a movie night with your friends. It could also be the case that one of those tasks is taking longer than expected and you need to re-prioritize or reschedule a deadline. In theatre, we do this re-evaluation at something we call a production meeting that happens about every week. All design and production members sit down to talk about the progress of the production and what still needs to get done. If needed, we will make new deadlines, reschedule certain rehearsals, or sometimes even cut parts of the production completely based on what we can accomplish by opening nights. The stage manager is constantly helping to re-evaluate priorities and make updates to the production calendar as needed. This process helps us to accomplish our goals and produce a complete piece of theatre by opening night.