Turning in a good performance at work while under pressure is one of the great challenges of modern life. Coping with stress has become a major concern for many of us, as tight deadlines, demanding targets and long working days cause anxiety level to shoot up.

Yet, being under pressure at work isn’t necessarily a disaster that automatically leads to poor performance. By understanding a few tactics for performing well in pressure-filled situations you won’t need to fear them so much. 

Take a Step Back Before Starting

The most common mistake people make in this kind of situation is to dive straight in and start pounding their keyboard as quickly as humanly possible. If time is of the essence then it makes sense to get started right away, doesn’t it? 

The problem in this case is that this can lead to blind panic taking grip, as you start working furiously without really knowing what you are doing. Taking a step back first of all is a far better idea.

This can mean going to the drinks machine for a coffee or maybe going for a short stroll around the office to get your thoughts together. By doing this you will get a bit of valuable thinking time and some breathing space. 

Rushing in to do as much as you can very quickly might appear to be the best option when you feel stress levels starting to rise but you could end up quickly regretting it. 

Create a Plan

So, if you aren’t going to rush in then what are you going to do? Once you have taken a few minutes to think about it, the chances are that you will decide that a plan is needed.

Unless you only have some short, simple task to carry out then a plan will help you to organise your efforts. Naturally, if you are under pressure then it is probably because you fear that the work looming in front of you is complicated or extremely time-consuming.

However, once you get started on looking at it in detail you might realise that it isn’t actually all that bad. Perhaps the simple act of putting a good plan in place will ease the pressure and let you feel far more relaxed about the task ahead. 

On the other hand, it might let you see right away that there was a good reason for feeling under pressure. By allocating time and resources to an issue you might come to the conclusion that it is impossible without some extra help. 

Share the Workload

Now that you have a plan, it will be a lot easier to share the workload out among the team. Team collaboration can go a long way towards turning a stressful situation into something a lot easier to handle. 

The idea of trying to handle it all by yourself might sound noble at first but it could end in disaster. There are times when you just have to accept that you have more on your plate than you can handle. 

If your company has a powerful culture of working together and helping each other out then there should be no problem in getting a helping hand when you most need it. Of course, you also need to be receptive to the need for team collaboration at other times, when a colleague who is under pressure needs you to help them out. 

Try to Avoid It Happening Again

Can you learn from this experience and stop it from happening again in the future? The truth of the matter is that in some businesses it can seem close to impossible to avoid pressure-filled situations. 

Yet, the ideas that we have looked at as ways of performing better under pressure can also be applied to stop the pressure building up so much in the first place. If you can learn to identify when stress is starting to build up then you can do something about it in time. 

Stopping this from becoming a major problem in the first place will help your blood pressure levels and also make your working life so much easier. Simply using these tactics at the right time can greatly reduce the amount of times that you feel under pressure from now on.

Glasscubes is a user-friendly collaboration software for teams. Connect everyone that you work with in an online workspace that improves the way you share files, manage projects and communicate with each other.

For more information, contact us by calling +44 (0)20 3274 2310 or email us at enquiries@glasscubes.com

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for more industry related news and topics.