Student Blog: Scheduling Madness

Theatre kids are no strangers to busy schedules. I feel like around every corner there’s a new show, a new scene to memorize, a new song to learn, another audition to prepare for, etc. All of these opportunities I love and want to do except for the tiny problem of I am only one person who can be in one place at a time. What I have found to be the most stressful part of being busy is not the actual running around to different things but the SCHEDULING part. 

Committing yourself to other people is extremely taxing. When it comes to student projects, especially, I feel obligated to give any time I have to them because I know how much it means to them. This semester, I have joined two student-directed projects for directing classes as well as my part-time job and gearing up material for my grad school auditions. The list of priorities gets murky for me. I typically end up mixing up one schedule with another, things overlap, and then I give up any time for myself so that I don’t let down a friend or my boss. It is something that has only been pointed out to me recently as to why I always feel guilty canceling on people when I physically can't be in two places at one time.  It’s an extremely dangerous cycle I am only realizing I need to break out of as a senior.

I can tell you to get an agenda, I can tell you to plan early and that’s all good advice. But what ends up being the most important thing at the end of the day for managing my responsibilities is just communicating. More often than not I want to pretend everything is fine so that the other person doesn’t freak out, but sometimes that just leads to me being late or dropping a responsibility. So this semester, I’ve made sure both the student project directors I am working with know the other one’s schedule, as well as my possible work schedule even when I didn’t have it set in stone yet.

Was I scared they were going to tell me I was too busy to participate? Yes. I sometimes feel that overcommunicating will be seen as pestering or annoying. But giving a director or boss everything upfront makes things so much easier. Then they also know my responsibilities and I can be completely transparent. Sometimes it might lead to them telling me I shouldn’t take on that project. And honestly, THAT’S OKAY! (That’s me telling myself that as well as you the reader). Giving my full self to a project is how I am going to get the experiences and education I want. Being half there just won’t be worth it. Basically when it comes to how to manage a schedule that looks overwhelming, Communication > a Color Coded Agenda.