How to Be Consistent When You’re Under Pressure

Besides running my small business and blogging about the journey of it here, I hold leadership roles in organizations, and blog about personal development. I love what I do and it helps to sharpen my saw. Entrepreneurs must be active in improving talents and gaining new skills.

With this responsibility, consistency in producing is important. Your team expects you to deliver on time every time. Especially, if that’s the expectation you’ve known to set. I’m organize and faithful at building systems to automate things. But there will be times when you have many projects due at the same time. Your ability to deliver will be tested. When this happens, the pressure is on. You must still be consistent in producing at a level of excellence. 

Here are ways to be consistent when you’re under the pressure of several due dates at once.

Don’t Think About the Pressure. 

• Work with your usual consistency but with greater focus and a greater sense of urgency. Don’t allow the pressure of many things to overwhelm and through you off your game. Trust in the systems you’ve established in your business. If you haven’t done this, now would be the time to start thinking about systematizing your operations.

Cut Distractions. Even the Ones That Are Positive.

• We’ve heard over and over to ignore negative distractions when we are working to be most productive. It’s effective and does increase focus. But eliminating all distractions, including positive ones, will help when you need extreme focus. Loved ones and friends will understand when you’re limited on time. They will respect your decision to be unavailable for a few hours.

Minimize Your Breaks.

• Minimize the amount of time and how frequent you take breaks away from work. Don’t skip breaks. Shorten how often you do so. Pulsing between tasks helps keep you from burning out. Taking breaks assist with performing at your best level consistently. Taking too many breaks when you have more than usual to get done decreases your productivity.

Say No.

• Say “no” to anything new. Don’t take on new projects when you’re in the final hours of current ones. Focus on what is in front of you and make sure its done well and on time. Agreeing to start new projects or tasks when you have several deadlines around the corner is not wise. You lease mental space that you don’t have the capacity to rent at this time.

Cancel Meetings.

• If organized and planned correctly, meetings can be effective and productive. But we both know most people can’t do this well and time is usually wasted at some point during a meeting. Cancel them unless you are the one facilitating the meeting. If you are facilitating the meeting, then be good at getting to the point, resolving the issues, and assigning deliverables.

Get Rid of Phone Calls.

• Cut phone calls. Use a messaging app or email. Phone calls tend to be longer than they need to be or what you would like them to be. If you have to make a phone call or receive one, speak fast and be concise. At the start of the call, be sure to let the person you’re speaking with know that you don’t have much time or will only take moments of theirs. This way you set the expectation up front that this call will be short.

Doing these things will help you get many things done when there doesn’t seem to be a lot of time left to do it. How do you deal with being consistent when under pressure?