Hey Reader,

I know a voice actor, call him Marcus (He's not real, but a composite of a few actors I've coached over the years). Great setup: three microphones, four software packages, notebooks full of character voices.

He’s also exhausted.

Every morning he'd look at it all and think: work on ADR today, oh, or, review the signature voices notes; but wait there's also that demo reel, or reach out to that casting director he keeps meaning to call.

He'd do a little of everything and finish nothing.

Then he got stuck on a train for four hours. No recording possible, and no phone calls to make. So he reviewed his notes on one voice signature, and prepared a shorthand that he could channel when he needs to.

When he got to the destination, he felt something he hadn't felt in months: done.

So he made a rule. Monday afternoons: performance work, nothing else. Tuesday mornings: email. Wednesday: maybe one new thing. Friday: look at what actually moved, and plan for next week.
​
He’s still got the same microphones, same notebooks, still sitting there. And those emergency sessions, and unexpected deadlines, got done too. He just stopped touching all of them in the same hour.

Six months in: more bookings, because his auditions carried the same steadiness as a good take. Less of the stress hormone that keeps your body in fight mode. The smaller cravings eased off, too. His nervous system wasn't running triage all day.

I proved the same thing three days ago.

I had a full weekend. Audio Description was booked for the San Diego Pride parade. The day before, I was rushed, wondering how I could get done what I needed to on the laptop with the drive from Los Angeles on a Friday afternoon. So, like fictitious Marcus above, I got on a train instead: four hours, wifi, ocean view most of the last half of the way. Got more done on the laptop during that ride than in the two days before it.

Then that night, the end of the week did what some end of the week sometimes does.

My laptop crashed. It was the night before I needed it most. Two hundred float descriptions and a full day of notes were on the line.

I ended up running the parade morning off my phone, dialing into Zoom from a link I rebuilt on the spot (the one scheduled for the day of the parade had inexplicably expired. You know how things happen everywhere everything, all at once). Then someone used the open line to say some ugly things in the first twenty minutes. I kicked them out and kept going.

And hundreds of people marched that morning, every shape and size and age. And our audience had the chance to see it.

The next day, the laptop needed parts; it’s gonna take six days. I couldn't wait six days, so I bought a stripped-down replacement, spent six hours rebuilding my setup, and finished the work that was actually due for Monday. Everything that wasn't essential, I canceled.

Marcus figured this out on a train with nothing to do. I figured it out again with everything on fire.

I decided the one thing before the day starts. (Rebuild the computer. Ship what’s due). And I did that. Let the rest wait its turn.

Best news is that the parade happened. And yesterday's Boothcamp I taught landed too, even after I opened with the wrong draft of a script (cloud syncing doesn't capture everything) and I had to own it out loud. yet, the work that mattered got done. The rest waited.

Same lesson, different day.

What do you do when everything breaks at once: the tech, the schedule, the person who wasn't ready to be kind? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.