When your back is against the wall
Why you don’t actually do your best work under pressure
“I do my best work under pressure.” We’ve all heard and most of us have probably said. It’s a common justification for procrastinating. However, psychological research into the matter has found the opposite to be true. Stress makes it harder for the brain to function and grapple with the cognitive load. According to a study by Joseph Ferrari, published in the European Journal of Personality, “people under temporal pressure have been shown time and time again to make more errors of omission (not doing or including something they should have) and commission (doing something, but doing it wrong or poorly) than people working on a more protracted time scale.”
Generally speaking, there is no such thing as “good work under pressure.” That’s not to say that people are never in situations where they must work under pressure, or have put off completing tasks. In fact, that scenario is quite common. According to Dr. Bill Knanus, frequent contributor at t contributor at Psychology Today, a common cause for procrastination is attempting to avoid pressure. However, as the deadline draws closer and closer, the individual is confronted with a choice: starting at the last minute and taking on the pressure, or not doing the assignment at all. At this point, the individual’s back is against the wall, and the only choices are do or die. Typically speaking, the individual elects to “do,” now taking on the assignment and the associated pressure.
However, the feeling of doing your best work under pressure is merely a panic-stricken response to an approaching deadline. In speaking with one of my informants, he stated, “Whenever I procrastinate, I do better when it’s crunch time because I get a sense of urgency.” In response, I asked him if he felt he did the assignment better or faster, to which he replied, “faster for sure.” My informant’s response, after a small push, indicated precisely what this research suggests: the pressure of procrastination doesn’t make the work better, it just makes sure the work gets done.
Moreover, my informant explained that the mounting pressure and looming deadline stirred up a sense of urgency. This sense of urgency is a concept explored [in not-so-scientific terms] by blogger and self-proclaimed master procrastinator, Tim Urban.
Urban explains that this sense of urgency comes from what he terms “the Panic Monster,” the crazy red thing in the picture above. He states the Panic Monster is only reason procrastinators actually get anything done, explaining, “the Panic Monster is dormant most of the time, but he suddenly wakes up when a deadline gets too close or when there’s danger of public embarrassment, a career disaster, or some other scary consequence.”
The Panic Monster motivates us to do the work because it HAS to get done. As an individual is moving through their work and getting it done, they realize how productive they are being and assume the pressure must be the reason for their productivity, when in fact, it is actually the panic.
This on-going battle between panic and time raises important questions about how college students who procrastinate imagine their time, and imagine how their time is and will be spent.
