Comparing Deadline Pressure Scenarios to Peak Performance with Regard to Experience of Time, Effort, Well-being, and Time Estimation
When there's deadline pressure, the situation is always somewhat inflexible and intensely charged, like a carbonated beverage that's been vigorously shaken. So all the keys to releasing the pressure loosen up this structure in some way.
Before trying the exercises for releasing time pressure, it can be helpful to understand exactly what you're dealing with. Following is a description of a typical deadline scenario. See whether this fits your experience of working under a deadline:
1. Experience of time Time is felt to flow among three rooms in experience, from past to present to future at a constant and uncontrollable rate, no matter what you do or think. You may struggle or race against time, but nothing that you do can slow time down. (This is one aspect of a perspective called linear time. See also Linear vs. Timeless Views.) Occasionally you look toward a distant future deadline. The deadline is relentlessly coming closer, and there's nothing you can do to slow it down. Every time you think about the deadline closing in on you, there's anxiety and pressure, because you 'realistically' might not have enough time to get the work done on time. You may struggle or race against time, but nothing that you do can slow time down.
Does this match your experience of working under deadline pressure?
2. Well-being There's dissatisfaction or a lack of fulfillment here in the present. It might feel like you are being squeezed or confined, overwhelmed, or there might even be a sense of impending doom. Since the feelings are so unpleasant, there's a tendency to look forward to a better time after the deadline.
3. Effort The work feels stressful and takes quite a bit of effort. You might fear that it's gradually wearing you down to the point where you could get sick.
4. Clock time estimation It's as if the river of time carries equal sized containers for our activities. Equal units of clock time seem to hold equal and limited potential for accomplishing things. (This is one aspect of a perspective called linear time. See also Linear vs. Timeless Views.) Estimating how long it will take to finish the task is based on the perception of equal capacity/unit of time, as well as past experiences of how long it took to accomplish similar things. (Thus your work capacity-how much you can accomplish in a given period of clock time-seems fixed.) This way of estimating time seems fairly reliable.
Identifying Qualities of Peak Productivity
Now that you've got more clarity on the situation you're starting with, to get a sense for the ideal way that this pressure scenario can change, you can explore the qualities of peak productivity under a deadline, when you are in what is sometimes called 'the zone'.
Take a minute to recall three projects during which you worked under a deadline and performed at your best for a while. When at your best, how did you experience time/timelessness? How was your sense of well-being? Was there effort involved in the work? After thinking about this, and perhaps making some notes on your conclusions, you could check out Linear vs. Timeless Views.
Description of Facets of Optimal Work from Research Literature
Now see whether the following description (from peak performance research) fits your memories of optimal work:
1. Experience of time Only during breaks do you feel time flowing from past to present to future. During peak work performance you're so absorbed in what you're doing there's no awareness of time flowing (80% probability, according to surveys I've conducted with about 2000 people). If you had to describe your experience of time, most likely you'd say it was timeless. On the other hand, you might (20% probability) say that time was going very quickly, yet it wasn't making you anxious with its passing. Time certainly doesn't feel out of control, and you're not trying to race against it. (See Linear vs. Timeless Views.)
In general you don't feel a lack of time--you just concentrate on what you're doing, which is going very well. You occasionally plans and think about the deadline, but this thinking doesn't cause much anxiety or pressure. (Thinking about clock time doesn't necessarily involve time flow or pressure!)
2. Well-being There's very little sense of dissatisfaction; in fact you probably feel invigorated, whole, and happy with the way things are going. As you work, you might occasionally think of the fact that the task isn't done, but this is very inconsequential. You're not worrying about not being done, nor are you looking foward to being done because that will be a better time than the present. The important thing is that you're really involved in what you're doing--you're getting results and having a good time by being engrossed.
3. Effort The work may be requiring mental or physical energy, but it doesn't feel very stressed. The work might even seem to be effortless in a sense, flowing with a momentum of its own. You may not feel separate from the activity. Like being in the eye of a hurricane, there can be a sense of presence and peacefulness even in the midst of quick or physically demanding activity.
4. Clock time estimation Instead of flowing in a fixed and relentless way, with equal-sized containers, time seems very flexible and changeable, even unpredictable. Occasionally you check your progress and estimate whether you'll be able to finish on time. But you don't take these estimates very seriously, partly because time doesn't seem very real during this peak experience, and partly because you know these estimates proved inaccurate so many times before. There's a sense of everpresent opportunity and possibility: perhaps, for example, you'll get some insight on how the work process can be improved.
Is Pressure Really Unchangeable in a Deadline Scenario?
There's a big difference between these four factors in the two scenarios. Productivity is clearly different. Feeling pressured, anxious, hurried, and overwhelmed are part of deadline scenarios, but never part of the views during peak performance. At this point, a good question to ask is, "In a deadline scenario is there anything that keeps it from becoming a peak experience?" Is there anything you know of that keeps a deadline scenario from changing into a peak experience? Really look to see whether anything seems absolutely unchangeable.
As long as I'm willing to learn from what I'm doing and I'm sensitively noticing how I'm working, it seems that the pressure eventually changes. Apparently there's nothing really fixed about pressure situations. Pressure doesn't seem to be built into certain jobs; I think it is somehow added to neutral situations because of our attitude, perspective, or confusion about values and goals. For more on this, read the following quotes from Coping with Executive Stress, by Richard E. Winter, M.D. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983).
- Stress, however inevitable, nevertheless is widely misunderstood. No concept dealing with human functioning and health has produced more confusion. According to conventional wisdom, stress is to be avoided if at all possible. But it cannot be. And even if it were, its avoidance would probably be calamitous to the individual and to society. The need is not for stress evasion but for effective ways of coping with stress. p. 1
- There is growing conviction among many investigators that how people cope with stress is far more important than the frequency and severity of stress episodes. Some people cope remarkably well-almost as if by instinct. p. 15
- Stress is neither good nor bad in itself. The effects of stress are not determined by stress itself, but by how we view and handle the stress, by how we appraise and adapt to an event. p. 169
- However much the stress of executive work is . . . it is not, in the final analysis, the stress itself which causes problems. It is how one reacts to the stress. The fundamental concept is, you don't have to respond with distress; you can teach yourself not to. You can, indeed, learn to cope. p. 209
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