Change How You Think About Pressure

We are living in a time of wanting it all, and wanting it now. A mentality that has transcended from our social feeds to our social needs, and into the workplace. Increasingly demanding deadlines that lead to late nights in the office. Last minute client requests that eat into lunch breaks. The pressure is real.

But pressure doesn’t have to be a bad thing. And at BBT, it isn’t. Not because we have eradicated pressure altogether, but because we understand that we aren’t invincible. We burn out. We get sick. We’re only human. We thrive under pressure because we know how to manage it.

Look at it this way: a small percentage of your life is dictated by what happens to you, but a large majority of life is dictated by how you handle what happens to you. This same logic can be applied to pressure; it is inevitable, it’s how business works, but its impact is dictated by how you and your team react to it.

1. Prioritise

It may sound simple, but prioritising what’s in front of you can often be overlooked in the workplace. Looking at something in its entirety can be overwhelming, but the moment you start to break things down into steps, is the moment you get your clarity.

34th President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, once said ‘The most urgent decisions are rarely the most important ones.’ The Eisenhower Matrix is his best-known technique, and the one I use as part of my productivity system.

It’s split into four parts, which you can use to categorise the work in front of you:

• Important, but not urgent – Decide when you will do it
• Urgent and important – Do it immediately
• Urgent but not important – Delegate to someone else
• Not important and not urgent – Do it later

Whenever something lands on your desk, begin by deciding what it falls under and then proceed. This helps you stay focused on where you want to go, and helps you realise the things that don’t add value.

2. Stop Procrastinating

Pressure intensifies when you fail to prioritise and act. In most situations, it is likely that procrastination has crept in, and now, you are feeling the heat. The good news is that procrastination is a habit that can be broken.

Start by asking yourself what you are resisting? Once you identify this, it makes it easier to give up that resistance and act. Keep doing this. Encourage your team to do this. Repeat, and repeat again. By constantly interrupting the habit, you’ll eventually find yourself in planning mode.

3. Be Transparent

We are the “always on” generation. Technology has birthed this, but it is our attitude that encourages it. With emails in our pockets, many of us feel we need to be on-call 24/7. We don’t. Boundaries are being crossed.

At BBT, delegation is critical to how we work. This starts with clear communication, actively encouraging everyone to stay transparent with their workload and the continuous use of a CRM that supports this mindset. We know our deadlines, but we also know one another’s workloads: shared responsibility and shared pressure.

4. Encourage Healthy Habits

An office fruit supply. Stand up desks. Making sure everyone takes breaks. While it isn’t an organisation’s place to dictate how an employee chooses to live their life, encouraging healthy habits can help cultivate healthy responses under pressure at work.

Take leading global travel search site Skyscanner, who continuously champion their approach to wellbeing. Their employee assistance programme (EAP) includes a paid subscription to meditation app, Headspace, on-site quiet rooms and yoga classes, and an option for employees to take part in a mindfulness course via its internal university. Thinking outside the standard benefits box.

5. Check in with Yourself

The reality is nobody can function at 100% all of the time. We have to set time aside to recover and recharge to take care of ourselves both personally, and professionally. Listen to yourself. Listen to your body.

Spend your free time doing things that help you feel re-energized. I find getting outdoors helps, whether that means a weekend away at the beach or simply going for a run. Getting out of your usual environment helps you face the working week with a clear mind.

Pressure is a healthy catalyst for us at BBT. It’s certainly where a lot of our diamonds are made. But our diamonds wouldn’t exist without a positive and mindful working environment. If you want to change how you think about pressure, start with that. Start with human nature.