Setting Deadlines

The author Truman Capote once wrote: “The problem with living outside the law is that you no longer have its protection.” If you transplant this idea to the context of a career in the arts, there are eerie parallels that can be drawn between a villainous existence and the liberty of a freelance artist. There are no rules, no set paths, no wake-up times or clocks to punch in the day-to-day creative (or criminal) life. So how the hell do you keep moving forward and achieving your goals? What’s to stop you slowing down or giving up when you are your own lawmaker? Let’s talk deadlines: the ultimate actor’s accountability tool.

Setting deadlines as an actor is a surefire way to keep your career on track between jobs. They invite you to set manageable goals and track towards them with progress in mind. Even if a project proves too ambitious, or the deadline requires modification due to external factors, the very existence of a date by which a project is due to be completed, or progressed, can provide a sense of momentum to otherwise stagnant periods in your creative career.

We’re going to keep the advice in this article as practical as possible. With that in mind, we’ll say up front that deadlines are not some ‘productivity hack’ or something that will immediately make you a better or more fulfilled actor. They are a tool, which, like any other in your actor’s toolkit, requires some practice and focus and lot of personal effort. If you’re willing to put that effort in, you’re sure to be rewarded.

How to Set a Deadline

Setting deadlines is not as simple as picking a date on your calendar in “x” amount of weeks or months. Sure, at some point, it does come down to that. But a good deadline is specific, focused and generally comprises of something you can’t simply do overnight.

Goals that require deadlines require time—and for you to consider how much time it is going to take to get there. So before you pick that date, think about the journey you’re going to be undertaking between now and then. Is it achievable? Is it sustainable? Can the goal be measured along the way, perhaps by the number of pages in a script you need to memorise each day to be off-book by rehearsals?

Good deadlines are:

• Challenging. They should get you moving, get you working and feeling motivated. A deadline set six months from now for something you could easily do by the end of the week is pointless. We can almost guarantee the problem in that scenario wasn’t the lack of a due date.

• Realistic. A lofty goal is a great thing to set for yourself. But if it’s too ambitious, you’ll overwhelm yourself and abandon the job along the way.

• Connected. One deadline should lead to the next milestone, which should set you up for the one that follows that, and so on.

• Supported by a plan. Anything less is a ‘dream’—and should be relegated to sleep, or an inspiration board.

Finally, remember that no deadline exists in a vacuum. Factor in your life, your career, your family, your other projects. If you know you’re going to get busy around October with a Halloween cabaret you’ve been writing, don’t set deadlines around that periods.

Accountability

Let’s say you follow these instructions to the letter: you’ve got a goal, a plan to get there and a date picked out uncrowded by the rigours of life. How do you keep yourself on track? Here’s where we return to our Capote quotation, and the problem it poses to the lawless. You need to develop ways to hold yourself accountable in hitting your deadlines.

One of the most effective ways is to call in external support. Tell a friend, peer or mentor what you’re working towards, give them the due date and promise them the results on that day as well. If you’re striving to finish a short film by the end of the season, it can be motivating to have a person expecting it completed the same day as you.

If you’re feeling particularly courageous, you could have this deadline coincide with an external event, competition or performance. Ready a song in time for a showcase, a screenplay in time for a prize, or a monologue in time to submit for feedback to our StageMilk scene club. Before you can say “shameless plug”, you’ve raised the expectation of you hitting the deadline and achieving your goal.

Checking In

Another effective means of holding yourself accountable is by scheduling regular check-ins with yourself between now and the deadline. Can you break up your goal into smaller chunks, such as the pre- production and post- of a film project? You could even set yourself more, smaller, manageable deadlines rather than one big one that might seem insurmountable on paper.

Regular check-ins will help you acknowledge your progress. You’ll get a feeling of momentum and a sense of achievement in the midst of pursuing something unwieldly, or ambitious. Regular check-ins also help you identify whether or not you might need to manage expectations, adjust your pace of working or even set yourself a later deadline than you initially planned.

Delays happen, workloads compound and projects can bloat in scale and scope. Identifying this in a check-in is not evidence of you failing. It’s a sign that the tool itself is working.

How to Blow a Deadline

What happens when you get to the night before your deadline and you haven’t memorised the speech? What if the self-tape won’t get shot, or the screenplay remains unfinished back on page 45 First of all, don’t beat yourself up. These things happen, and as the lawmaker in these parts you can choose to be lenient in your punishment. We’d strongly suggest you do just that.

Next, set yourself a new deadline. Simple as that! If the due date is tomorrow, and it won’t be ready for another few days, give yourself a week. There’s no point sliding into despair and throwing away everything you’ve achieved to that point. Give yourself another chance to reach your goal.

Now, if your goal was motivated by something external, such as a submisison deadline or a performance, have the foresight to set your personal deadline a week before the official date. That way, even if you run into strife with your own calendar, you have still have the chance to make the external cutoff.

Case Study: Sam’s New Showreel

Sam has been out of drama school for nearly three years. He’s happy with his current, mid-tier agent, who sends him for a couple of auditions each month, and he is active in the local independent theatre scene. The next step in Sam’s career is to do more screen work. For this, his agent (and his peers, and every second article on StageMilk) has advised him to shoot a brand new showreel.

Sam looks at his calendar and decides to set himself a deadline in six weeks’ time—or roughly the end of July. He supports this deadline with a plan of two weeks’ research, two weeks for learning and workshopping the scenes, and then two weeks to shoot and edit the piece together. He keeps himself accountable by letting his agent know the plan, and recruiting some actor peers to help him shoot and read the scenes. 

Then, of nowhere at the end of June, Sam gets a job on an independent film that shoots for two weeks on location at the start of July. Rather than abandon the deadline completely, Sam pushes the third phase of the plan back into mid-August, with a mind to keep learning and developing the material solo. He informs his agent and collaborators of the plan and continues with this new development in stride. 

Conclusion

So there you have it: everything you need to set deadlines as an actor. They are terrific tools for productivity, accountability and for ticking off the kinds of goals that might otherwise seem to lofty to tackle.

However, when it comes to the most useful benefit of a deadline for an actor, we’ve somewhat buried the lede. Deadlines aren’t just career boxes for your to check with increasing scale and difficulty. They promote sustainability in your acting career. Deadlines encourage you to consider your goals, workload and capacity. If you’re over-committing to your craft, your attitude towards the deadlines you set for yourself becomes the canary in the coalmine for issues such as poor mental health and burnout.

Feeling overwhelmed? Listen to yourself and adjust your workflow accordingly. Feeling ready for a challenge? Pick another goal and an add another “x” to the calendar. At the end of the day, it’s all up to you. The life of an artist may well be a lawless, self-governing place. But that isn’t to say you can’t be your own protector, cheer squad and champion all rolled into one. Giddy up.

Good luck!