Perils of the Part Time Practitioner

[Daniel Knutson-Bradac]

There are a lot of reasons for being a part time practitioner in Applied Improv. Perhaps you are just waiting for enough business to be a full time practitioner. Perhaps you have two kids in college to support and need the steady cash flow.......dang kids! Perhaps you just want to post a discussion with a lot of P's.

How do we deal with our part time status in this group? How do you deal with the "other" job you have full time? How do you deal with not having enough time to do all of the things you want to do?

At the Banff Conference, I attended the "Unimprovised Life is Not Worth Living" session and got to address a number of these issues for myself. As a result I'm using more of my improv skills at my 8-5 job......even turning my "hardened computer password" into a improv mantra and teaching others how to do so.

At the same time, in the rest of the time, with not a lot of rest, I get to do some wonderful applied improv work with other groups.

How are the rest of you part-timers out there coping with your two jobs?

[Leif Hansen]

What I would love some advice on, is time management. When you're doing this yourself, how do you guys schedule in advance enough to make time for marketing, promotion, admin, program dev and delivery, personal training, communications, etc.?
Thanks,
Leif

[Mike Weaver]

Hi Daniel,

Great thought. It is a struggle to do two jobs for me. Thankfully the skills and experiences that I've learned by doing this work is easily taken into the work that I do. They have certainly benefited from my work in applied improv. What keeps me from going crazy with two jobs, persevering, and moving forward is a sense of a greater calling and vision for the future. I'm moving forward toward a different tomorrow, one measured, intentional step at a time.

Mike

[Leif Hansen]

Hi Daniel,
I rather naively decided to jump FT into starting my business (Spark Northwest) and, though it looks like things are moving in a positive direction, it has turned out to be a little too financially risky (ie, my financial cushion is just about spent and I am not currently doing enough AI related work to support myself). So, I'm putting my Geek hat back on and doing computer work where I can find it. I do think/hope that in 6-12 months I'll be making enough $ through AI work to risk dropping other work, but for now things are a bit scary! That's my basic story...