FOCUS GROUP - WHAT DO I ASK/ STREAMLINING MYSELF!

 I often struggle to know how to streamline my thoughts and work out what I should do next, at my day job I am pretty good at this, but in my own life, it seems to go out of the window! I have so many thoughts that jump around, I find I am there with a net trying to catch a few that might stick... so I am attempting to streamline them and create a set of questions for my first research experiment...THE FOCUS GROUP!

My research topic for Module 3 is 'How to craft a healthy work/life balance as an Actor'. This has been something that kept sticking out to me from the beginning of this course when I was trying to work out what my practice was exactly and what I wanted to know more about. Although I feel I am often a bit 'scatty' and 'all over the place' It surprised me to see that my ideas/ wonders and general through-line has stayed relatively the same, and probably heightened more so during the whole pandemic! 

I thought I would dive in at the deep end and kick-off module 3 with the focus group of 6 actors rather than a little one on one interview to ease myself in! (what have I done) THANK GOD I looked at Sophie's wonderful blog  (also a module 3) at:

 https://sophiebapp.blogspot.com/

Although I knew I needed to ask the right questions, I was struggling with what they were!? I make copious amounts of notes, so went through and made my set questions...but there were so many and some that repeated themselves and I really had no order... Sophies' blog really helps explain, how to get the best/effective questions and how to structure them. I also needed a bit more of an idea regarding the focus group; as an actor I LOVE discussion, bouncing off others and that is when I have my best ideas and perspectives - so the idea of a focus group felt natural to me, to get the best answers, reflections and hopefully opposing/interesting ideas! 

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-run-a-focus-group

So I know my question, I then used a spider diagram after looking through my folder from module one and two to really work out the fundamental things I wanted to know:

From this I created some more specific questions, one from each area:

And finally streamlined this again into a presentation to deliver for my focus group; a guide to explain the topic, how it will work and then showing each question so they can have the question on the screen (so as not to lose track) when others are discussing 

My concerns are that we will run out of time (I have given an hour for the focus group) and that my questions are either too broad or too specific. I am aiming to conduct two on one interviews post this session, so hopefully, I can re-evaluate anything that did not work from this. 

I have just finished a full day working 9-6 and then jumping straight on to uni work, I am struggling to try and do everything at the moment, and feel I need to focus on university and working my day job at the moment, controversially the pandemic has in some ways made me feel less anxious about there being acting work I am missing out on. However, the journey I have embarked on throughout this course has made me realize that It is not ' a means to an end' this course is part of my practice as an actor and I do not have to feel 'guilty' about spending my time at the moment on university work rather than emailing casting directors and applying for jobs. 

Maybe this is where I am currently meant to be. Like this article comments on ' Don't do everything'


' https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/the-art-of-balancing-a-career-and-personal-life-65647/

 Much like my mind - this blog post is probably a bit all over the place, but I will get there in the end and hope that my focus group tomorrow is not just that!