Planning is really hard when there are so many unknowns. Too many variables and no real data to make good assumptions on.
The biggest problem is… what’s going to happen in the next year?
Will people go back to work? Which people? What work?
Will businesses be able to continue to operate? Which businesses?
For those of us connected to live art forms, those questions get scarier. In opera there is a lot of talk about fall 2021 or even 2022. But at the same time, some organizations are talking about a September 2020 return…
Will there be work in the fall or is it a year until work starts? What assumptions should we make?
We don’t know.
And so planning is hard.
It’s still valuable, if you can muster the energy to do it. I say ‘if’ not because you ‘really should’, but because sometimes you can’t… and that’s okay. There is a lot of work to be done these days and I won’t pretend that this is the most important kind.
Planning is hard most of the time, but planning is very hard right now.
Stretching my mind into the future often feels like reaching out and touching a hot stove. Too clear a vision into the next year causes my reaching mind to recoil, scarred.
But I feel the need to reach out again and again in the hope that looking, imagining, planning will help this lost feeling that I can’t shake.
So how can you make a plan this year? Just pick some assumptions that make sense right now, and sketch out one path. Sketch it out knowing that it will change, but sketch anyways.
For example:
Assumption One: It will be difficult to make any real income in the next 3 months.
Assumption Two: Most likely live theatre will not happen until fall 2021
Assumption Three: Government benefits will likely stop after CERB
If these things are true, what are some decisions I can make? How do I want to use the assets that I have? What will make me the most flexible if things change?
Your assumptions will probably be wrong. But never forget that planning is a craft not a product. By going through this process it will be easier to incorporate new information when it comes.
