Eat well, exercise, work, audition, edit, rehearse, write, play, party, network, research, call mom and dad (sh*t reminds me I have to call my dad back) and then somehow fit in 6-8 hours (if you’re lucky) of sleep and do it all again. I won’t lie. Being a working actor is tough, but it’s not impossible.
It does however require a pretty diligent commitment to your Google Calendar. I’m not even joking. I’m not sponsored at all, and I will definitely do a post about a better calendar if I find one, but as of writing this, every actor should have the Google Calendar app. Great, now that you’ve done that, get comfortable with it, connect your most important google accounts and iCloud accounts to it and start plugging in some of the things you have planned for this week. If you have a shift at your day/night job, block out that time with an event and if you’re feeling extra organized, put the address in so you can just click it and have your navigation come right up.
Repeat this process for other things, dates, movies or plays you plan on attending, dinner parties, etc. You should have a pretty full calendar by now. Now one of the last steps is to make a “task” for every audition you get, and have it scheduled for the day before the audition is due, if it’s a self tape, or an hour before if it is in person. Tasks are meant to be “completed” in the calendar and at least for me gives me a sense of purpose each day (I even have a little task everyday to remind me to take my allergy pill).
The last evolution in your calendar should be color coding. It’s so much fun and can help you analyze your schedule at a glance. For example any time I have a shift at a non acting job I color it grey (because it’s soulless haha…). Acting related things are red so it’s big and bold and hopefully I won’t forget it. Figure out what system works best for you.
The last thing I’ll leave you with, is please do not be one of those actors who forsakes any and all social interaction to be an actor. You need to have hobbies and socialize. Trust me, most of this business is how you act outside of acting. I’ll make a much more in depth blog post on this at a later date. In the meantime, enjoy your new balanced, and organized life.
Jared Boghosian 