Deadline Stress Quotes

I'm convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. If one is writing for one's own pleasure, that fear may be mild — timidity is the word I've used here. If, however, one is working under deadline — a school paper, a newspaper article, the SAT writing sample — that fear may be intense.

As a king can wear a crown, a crown can also weary a king.

We need stressful days in order to be happy. We need days when we get zero sleep and are working tirelessly on a deadline. Because if we didn’t, the lazy days wouldn’t feel good … We need to always be working towards something in order to feel useful and have a sense of purpose.

Just by observing the adults around me I understood very early on that life goes by in no time at all, yet they're always in such a hurry, so stressed out by deadlines, so eager for now that they needn't think about tomorrow...But if you dread tomorrow, it's because you don't know how to build the present, and when you don't know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it's a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up becoming today, don't you see?

Or how about the fact that stress can actually increase your performance at a task? It’s a neurological process, not just “something people say.” Deadlines are one of the most common ways of inducing stress that provoke an increase in performance.

Stress is not because of work—this is important to remember. Everybody thinks their job is stressful. No job is stressful. There are many jobs that could present challenging situations. There could be nasty bosses, insecure colleagues, emergency rooms, impossible deadlines—or you might even find yourself in the middle of a war zone! But these are not inherently stressful. It is our compulsive reaction to the situations in which we are placed that causes stress. Stress is a certain level of internal friction. One can easily lubricate the inner mechanism with some amount of inner work and awareness. So, it is your inability to handle your own system that is stressing you out. On some level, you do not know how to handle your body, mind, and emotions; that is the problem. How

Deadlines are one of the most common ways of inducing stress that provoke an increase in performance.

But just by observing the adults around me I understood very early on that life goes by in no time at all, yet they’re always in such a hurry, so stressed out by deadlines, so eager for now that they needn’t think about tomorrow . . . But if you dread tomorrow, it’s because you don’t know how to build the present, and when you don’t know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it’s a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up becoming today, don’t you see?

Deadlines and daily dilemmas are stressful focus on solutions problems concerns don't sweat make best out of the moment.

Perhaps the best way to begin is by making a mental list of the sorts of things we find stressful. No doubt you would immediately come up with some obvious examples—traffic, deadlines, family relationships, money worries. But what if I said, “You’re thinking like a speciocentric human. Think like a zebra for a second.” Suddenly, new items might appear at the top of your list—serious physical injury, predators, starvation. The need for that prompting illustrates something critical—you and I are more likely to get an ulcer than a zebra is.

Stress is not because of work—this is important to remember. Everybody thinks their job is stressful. No job is stressful. There are many jobs that could present challenging situations. There could be nasty bosses, insecure colleagues, emergency rooms, impossible deadlines—or you might even find yourself in the middle of a war zone! But these are not inherently stressful. It is our compulsive reaction to the situations in which we are placed that causes stress. Stress is a certain level of internal friction. One can easily lubricate the inner mechanism with some amount of inner work and awareness. So, it is your inability to handle your own system that is stressing you out. On some level, you do not know how to handle your body, mind, and emotions; that is the problem.

THE URGENCY ADDICTION Some of us get so used to the adrenaline rush of handling crises that we become dependent on it for a sense of excitement and energy. How does urgency feel? Stressful? Pressured? Tense? Exhausting? Sure. But let’s be honest. It’s also sometimes exhilarating. We feel useful. We feel successful. We feel validated. And we get good at it. Whenever there’s trouble, we ride into town, pull out our six shooter, do the varmint in, blow the smoke off the gun barrel, and ride into the sunset like a hero. It brings instant results and instant gratification. We get a temporary high from solving urgent and important crises. Then when the importance isn’t there, the urgency fix is so powerful we are drawn to do anything urgent, just to stay in motion. People expect us to be busy, overworked. It’s become a status symbol in our society—if we’re busy, we’re important; if we’re not busy, we’re almost embarrassed to admit it. Busyness is where we get our security. It’s validating, popular, and pleasing. It’s also a good excuse for not dealing with the first things in our lives. “I’d love to spend quality time with you, but I have to work. There’s this deadline. It’s urgent. Of course you understand.” “I just don’t have time to exercise. I know it’s important, but there are so many pressing things right now. Maybe when things slow down a little.

Enhanced by our powerful brains, something as artificial and arbitrary as a deadline can easily be mistaken for a death-threat, triggering our traumatic memories of childhood helplessness, which in turn trigger the mindless reflex of the stress-response.

Cooking involves a deadline and hungry people and ingredients that expire in a week. It's stressful. Cooking happens on the stove and on the clock. Baking happens with ingredients that last for months and come to life inside a warm oven. Baking at Zomick's Bakery is slow and leisurely.

We mustn't forget old people with their rotten bodies, old people who are so close to death, something that young people don't want to think about (so it is to homes that they entrust the care of accompanying their parents to the threshold, with no fuss or bother). And where's the joy in these final hours that they ought to be making the most of? They're spent in boredom and bitterness, endlessly revisiting memories. We mustn't forget that our bodies decline, friends die, everyone forgets about us, and the end is solitude. Nor must we forget that these old people were young once, that a lifespan is pathetically short, that one day you're twenty and the next day you're eighty. [...] But just by observing the adults around me I understood very early on that life goes by in no time at all, yet they're always in such a hurry, so stressed out by deadlines, so eager for now so they needn't think about tomorrow... But if you dread tomorrow, it's because you don't know how to build the present, and when you don't know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it's a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up becoming today, don't you see?

We become “possessed” by the principality and power when we internalize the spirituality of the system and the practices, beliefs, attitudes, habits, values, expectations, norms, and traditions of the system become the sources we use to form our own identity. And while the tag “possession” might seem extreme, it does help us name something more clearly, something left out of our descriptions at the start of the chapter regarding the ill effects associated with our service to the powers. Specifically, we previously noted how the powers can make us harried, stressed, and rivalrous. But it’s a bit worse than all that. It’s not just that the powers push us around from the outside with demands, deadlines, and expectations. The powers also affect (and infect) us from the inside. A focus on service— how we work and make sacrifices for the institution— tends to miss how we often internalize the spirituality of the institution, how our identity becomes formed by and fused with the institution. A focus on service and work (though important) tends to be too behavioral in nature to capture how the institution gets inside us, inhabiting our hearts and minds and affecting how we see ourselves, others, and the world around us.

Out on the Savannah, our physiological responses were perfectly suited to deal with stressors (run from the big animals with big teeth). These days we can’t just run from what drives up our anxiety and stress; mortgages, money problems, looking hot, relationships and deadlines. Evolution did not set us up to suffer Jurassic Park levels of stress, day in day out; that’s the bitch of living at today’s pace. Psychological

He realized that he needed a clear mind and clear emotion to draw and execute well from the beginning to the end of his work. We draw our most potent creativity from deep wells. That is not to say we cannot exercise energy as we execute. But we often mistake time pressures, stress and deadlines, alongside the cacophony of an always-on world, as the necessary stimuli to create great work. I believe great work comes from a place of stillness where one's focus is total on the action in hand, directed fully by the heart.

After a while, however, the desire to write begins to mount. I can feel my material building up within me, like spring melt pressing against a dam. Then one day (in a best-case scenario), when I can’t take that pressure anymore, I sit down at my desk and start to write. Worry about journal editors impatiently awaiting a promised manuscript never enters the picture. I don’t make promises, so I don’t have deadlines. As a result, writer’s block and I are strangers to each other. As you might expect, that makes my life much happier. It must be terribly stressful for a writer to be put in the position of having to write when he doesn’t feel like it. (Could I be wrong? Do most writers actually thrive on that kind of stress?)

It is tragic, too, that students now describe themselves as mentally ill when facing what are the routine demands of student life and independent living. The NUS survey reports that students' feelings of crippling mental distress are primarily course-related and due to academic pressure. In 2013, in response to that year's NUS mental health survey, an article cheerily entitled 'Feeling worthless, hopeless ... who'd be a university student in Britain?' listed one young writer's anxiety-inducing student woes that span the whole length of her course: 'Grueling interview processes are not unusual, especially for courses like medicine, dentistry, and veterinary science, or for institutions like Oxbridge'. And then: 'Deadlines come thick and fast for first-year students, and for their final-year counterparts, the recession beckons'. Effectively, the very requirements of just being a student are typified as inducing mental illness. It can be hard to have sympathy with such youthful wimpishness. But I actually don't doubt the sincerity of these 'severe' symptoms experienced by stressed-out students. That is what is most worrying--they really are feeling over-anxious about minor inconveniences and quite proper academic pressure.

But one can see exactly why Dr Ali is so successful - he seems to offer a solution within the individual's grasp: you may not be able to change deadlines and workloads, but you can make yourself more efficient. Ancient wisdoms can be adapted to speed up human beings: this is the kind of individualised response which fits neatly into a neo-liberal market ideology. It draws on Eastern contemplative traditions of yoga and meditation which place the emphasis on individual transformation, and questions the effectiveness of collective political or social activism. Reflexology, aromatherapy, acupuncture, massage - these alternative therapies are all booming as people seek to improve their sense of well-being and vitality. Much of it makes sense - although trips to the Himalayas are hardly within the reach of most workers and the complementary health movement plays an important role in raising people's under standing of their own health and how to look after themselves. But the philosophy of improving ‘personal performance' also plays into the hands of employers' rationale that well-being and coping with stress are the responsibility of the individual employee. It reinforces the tendency for individuals to search for 'biographic solutions to structural contradictions', as the sociologist Ulrich Beck put it: forget the barricades, it's revolution from within that matters. This cultural preoccupation with personal salvation stymies collective reform, and places an onerous burden on the individual. It effectively reinforces the anxieties and insecurities which it offers to assuage.

His Burden Is Light Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke fits perfectly, and the burden I give you is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 What heavy burden is weighing you down and causing a heaviness and weariness in your spirit? Is it the need to take care of an elderly parent? a seemingly impossible deadline at work? juggling overwhelming responsibilities of a job plus parenting a houseful of kids? the burden of chronic illness? a difficult relationship with someone you love? financial struggles? Whatever your “heavy burden” might be, Jesus invites you, just as he did the crowds he was teaching: Come to me. Give me the heavy load you’re carrying. And in exchange, I will give you rest. Whenever I read these verses from Matthew, I breathe a sigh of relief. Jesus knows the challenges and deadlines we face and the weariness of mind or body we feel. He understands the stress, tasks, and responsibilities that are weighing us down. As we lay all that concerns us before him, his purpose replaces our agenda, and his lightness and rest replace our burden. LORD, thank you for your offer to carry my burdens for me. I give them all to you and I gladly receive your rest! I place myself under your yoke to learn from you. Teach me your wisdom that is humble and pure, and help me to walk in the ways you set before me. Thank you for your mercy and love that invite me to live my life resting and trusting in you!   WHEN HE SAYS TO YOUR DISTURBED, DISTRACTED, RESTLESS SOUL OR MIND, “COME UNTO ME,” HE IS SAYING, COME OUT OF THE STRIFE AND DOUBT AND STRUGGLE OF WHAT IS AT THE MOMENT WHERE YOU STAND, INTO THAT WHICH WAS AND IS AND IS TO BE—THE ETERNAL, THE ESSENTIAL, THE ABSOLUTE. Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)    

On the contrary, we absolutely mustn’t forget it. We mustn’t forget old people with their rotten bodies, old people who are so close to death, something that young people don’t want to think about (so it is to retirement homes that they entrust the care of accompanying their parents to the threshold, with no fuss or bother). And where’s the joy in these final hours that they ought to be making the most of? They’re spent in boredom and bitterness, endlessly revisiting memories. We mustn’t forget that our bodies decline, friends die, everyone forgets about us, and the end is solitude. Nor must we forget that these old people were young once, that a lifespan is pathetically short, that one day you’re twenty and the next day you’re eighty. Colombe thinks you can “hurry up and forget” because it all seems so very far away to her, the prospect of old age, as if it were never going to happen to her. But just by observing the adults around me I understood very early on that life goes by in no time at all, yet they’re always in such a hurry, so stressed out by deadlines, so eager for now that they needn’t think about tomorrow . . . But if you dread tomorrow, it’s because you don’t know how to build the present, and when you don’t know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it’s a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up becoming today, don’t you see? So, we mustn’t forget any of this, absolutely not. We have to live with the certainty that we’ll get old and that it won’t look nice or be good or feel happy. And tell ourselves that it’s now that matters: to build something, now, at any price, using all our strength. Always remember that there’s a retirement home waiting somewhere and so we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying. Climb our own personal Everest and do it in such a way that every step is a little bit of eternity. That’s what the future is for: to build the present, with real plans, made by living people.

people who have the genes for unipolar major depression cannot turn off their stress response. When they experience stress from jobs, deadlines, family trouble, medical illness, or extreme excitement, large quantities of steroid stress hormones and norepinephrine come pouring into their brains and cannot be stopped. Every day, this stress overload is fatiguing and killing cells in their brains, bringing on unipolar major depression.

How This Bad Habit Hurts Your Productivity Yielding to others’ demands for your time and attention lessens your productivity in five ways. First, it disrupts your work flow. You lose whatever momentum you managed to build through focused attention. Without distractions, that momentum helps you to complete tasks in less time. Second, it allows other people to dictate how you spend your time. You’re never in charge of your day, which means you can’t accurately plan it. Indeed, any plans you make are little more than wishes, or best-case scenarios. Third, saying “yes” gives you less time to address your own responsibilities. That can be disastrous if you’re working under an impending deadline. The people you help benefit by completing their tasks, but your own tasks remain unfinished. You may even be forced to work overtime to meet your responsibilities (see Day 7 for more on this bad habit). Fourth, it reduces the quality of your work. After spending considerable time helping others meet their responsibilities, you may be forced to rush through your own in order to finish them under deadline. The more you rush, the greater the likelihood you’ll make mistakes. While one or two mistakes are unlikely to cause a major problem, work littered with them will. Fifth, you risk suffering from burnout. Continuously relenting to others’ demands increases your stress levels. Deadlines loom and your work piles up as you spend your available time helping coworkers with their tasks. It’s tough to be productive when you’re feeling overstretched and under pressure. Let’s make a change. Following are seven steps to take if you want to learn to say “no” to your coworkers, friends and family members.

In this book we leap ahead to the ultimate possibility, being conscious all the time. But is that feasible when someone is inundated with deadlines, bills, their children’s schooling, and so forth? With so much stress and tension being lobbed at us from so many directions, attention gets dulled. We become reactive rather than attentive. This is how mindfulness gets lost despite our best intentions. Pause for a moment, though, and reflect on how your day has been going. If you’re like most people, you will find yourself spending much of your time in reactions rather than paying attention and being mindful of what’s going on. As a result, you are living unconsciously while accepting that this is normal.

You’ll have all your appointments in your calendar, and other reminders in your Tickler file, but I still like having something physical in front of me to understand what the upcoming week will be like, as well as something to refer to when reviewing how the previous week went.   So I made a Weekly Planner. Everyone has appointments and deadlines for the week. You can write those out here, as well as weekly goals based on your “Projects” list in order to keep them moving forward.   It also has space for your MITs.     “Most

I know you are feeling overworked and overwhelmed so please feel free to take a seat and relax and collect your thoughts and I will try to find some time to help you deal with your problem. In the meantime, if you do find something to do, please feel free to do so. My time is limited as is yours but I will try to find the time to discuss this stressful matter with you. But in consideration, tough shit; I’m busy if you haven’t noticed. Someone has got to get the work done while you’re sitting around on your fat, lazy, whining, unionized ass taking it easy. And sorry, I do not wish to have the time to sit around and bitch about how busy I am. I have too much to do and too many deadlines to have the time for that kind of bullshit. Thank you for your patience in this matter. Have a happy : ) , sincerely, The Office Staff.

The funny thing about life is — you think you have it planned out to a T — I want to be married when I’m twenty-six, I want to start having children when I’m twenty-eight, shit like that causes stress and…deadlines.

Relieving Stress Stress is your reaction to outside stimuli pushing your mind, body or spirit out of balance. Adapting to new stimuli is how you increase your capabilities and develop new skills, i.e., the basis of growth. But, if the stimuli is too great or arrives so quickly that you are unable to adapt, then the resulting stress can lead to physical, emotional or mental problems. Stress can be triggered by many factors, including: physical, emotional or mental abuse; life changing events such as a new job, moving, pregnancy or divorce; work or school-related deadlines; high stress occupations; and uncomfortable social situations Exposure to stress affects us in stages: In the first stage, when we experience stress, our bodies automatically react with the characteristic “fight or flight” response, also known as an adrenaline rush. In life threatening situations this is helpful, as adrenaline causes our bodies to increases our pulse, blood pressure and rate of breathing, better preparing us to do battle or to escape. When the outside stimuli disappear, often with a good night’s sleep, we return to normal. Continued exposure to stress, without a break, results in the second stage. In today’s modern society, everyday stress from traffic jams, work, or just plain living, triggers this same reaction. We end up in a constant state of stress. We deplete our reserves, especially our adrenal glands, and lessen our ability to handle additional stress. Even our ability to sleep can be affected. The final stage results from the accumulation of stress over time and leads to exhaustion. Unable to return our body, mind and spirit to its normal state of balance due to overwhelming stress, we suffer physical, emotional and mental breakdowns. Warning signs are: weight gain or loss, ulcers, indigestion, insomnia, depression, anxiety, fear, anger, inability to concentrate, moodiness, and other problems. It can be argued that all disease is a consequence of stress.

because we had more fiscal deadlines looming,

Don’t stress about deadlines. This book is already behind deadline, but you’re still reading it.

ADHD increases a person’s stress levels because they are unable to concentrate and filter out unnecessary stimuli. Anxiety, which can be brought on by looming deadlines, procrastination, or an inability to focus on a task, can increase ADHD symptoms brought on by stress.

If I dared to define time with one word I would use ‘opportunity.’ We can use time as an opportunity to help us become happier people, be more optimistic and allow us to make the best of the ‘time’ we have left. Remember too that we can all throw ourselves a lifeline – not a deadline - by appreciating just how precious life really is in the present moment. Peaceful, enduring happiness right now. Yes, we all have pressures. We all have to achieve goals to reach by a specific ‘time’. But we don’t have to take it too personally or get too stressed out by ‘it’ – whatever ‘it’ really is?

If you are working on a short story for a small online press, don't try to write a serious, world-changing, add-this-to-the-literary-canon masterpiece. Do your best work, but keep it all in perspective. Save the stress for when it is really called for, like facing a two-week deadline to rewrite a novel for a major house.

Then the heavy lifting began. For the next six months, our employees rarely saw their families. We worked deep into the night, seven days a week. Despite two hit movies, we were conscious of the need to prove ourselves, and everyone gave everything they had. With several months still to go, the staff was exhausted and starting to fray. One morning in June, an overtired artist drove to work with his infant child strapped into the backseat, intending to deliver the baby to day care on the way. Some time later, after he’d been at work for a few hours, his wife (also a Pixar employee) happened to ask him how drop-off had gone—which is when he realized that he’d left their child in the car in the broiling Pixar parking lot. They rushed out to find the baby unconscious and poured cold water over him immediately. Thankfully, the child was okay, but the trauma of this moment—the what-could-have-been—was imprinted deeply on my brain. Asking this much of our people, even when they wanted to give it, was not acceptable. I had expected the road to be rough, but I had to admit that we were coming apart. By the time the film was complete, a full third of the staff would have some kind of repetitive stress injury. In the end, we would meet our deadline—and release our third hit film. Critics raved that Toy Story 2 was one of the only sequels ever to outshine the original, and the total box office would eventually top $500 million. Everyone was fried to the core, yet there was also a feeling that despite all the pain, we had pulled off something important, something that would define Pixar for years to come. As Lee Unkrich says, “We had done the impossible. We had done the thing that everyone told us we couldn’t do. And we had done it spectacularly well. It was the fuel that has continued to burn in all of us.” T

On the other hand, research23 shows that when we are completely in tune with what we are doing, we more fully enjoy that activity. Moreover, being completely present allows us to enter a state of complete absorption that is extremely productive. Think of a time when you were faced with a project you were dreading. You knew it would involve a lot of effort; maybe you kept putting it off. However, once you started—perhaps finally egged on by an impending deadline—you became engaged and the project just flowed. You found that you actually enjoyed the process. You became highly productive because you focused completely on the task at hand. Instead of being stressed about the future and having your attention pulled in different directions, you got the work done and done well, and you were happy to boot.

Time. Time is an invention, a thought, a concept. I would prefer to live in moments, rather than in time. Moments made up of all of the beautiful events that I desire to have. The concept of time has been adopted, without thought, by most people in the World. Time anchors people, dictates moments, and has people rushing through their lives to make it to another “time”. “Time” to pay bills, “time” when rent is due, “time” spent working, “time” creating stress and deadlines, “time” giving expiration to living – ageing - “dying”. “Time” runs out, so it is said... But then again...

How to Quiet Your Mind: Relax and Silence the Voice of Your Mind, Today! - A Beginner's Guide - Marc Allen Is an inner dialog always going on inside you, preventing you from getting things done, making clear decisions, and concentrating on tasks? How many times have you been faced with some task or resolved to learn some new creative skill only to set it aside for some menial activity with no deadline or value? At the end of the day, have you ever asked yourself, “Why did I do that? Why did I waste so much time?” Are you looking to stop this? In this book, you will learn about techniques to quiet this inner voice, relax, focus on the here and now, and get your mind to cooperate with what YOU want. You’ll learn very, very easy techniques that you can use starting today to quiet your inner dialogue and to relieve stress and increase focus, techniques that can improve your intellectual and creative capacities, exercises that will help you in every aspect of your outward life, and more.

Deadlines cause stress, and prolonged stress is bad for your creativity, productivity, and health.

One rule of thumb you should use when setting deadlines for yourself is to carefully consider how much time you expect the entire project to take and multiple that number by 1.5. For example, if you think your project is going to take 10 days to complete, plan to give yourself 15 days.

Look at your list of bad habits. For each one you’ve written down, identify what triggers it. Figure out what I call “The Big 4’s”—the “who,” the “what,” the “where,” and the “when” underlying each bad behavior. For example: • Are you more likely to drink too much when you’re with certain people? • Is there a particular time of day when you just have to have something sweet? • What emotions tend to provoke your worst habits—stress, fatigue, anger, nervousness, boredom? • When do you experience those emotions? Who are you with, where are you, or what are you doing? • What situations prompt your bad habits to surface—getting in your car, the time before performance reviews, visits with your in-laws? Conferences? Social settings? Feeling physically insecure? Deadlines? • Take a closer look at your routines. What do you typically say when you wake up? When you’re on a coffee or lunch break? When you’ve gotten home from a long day?

Relax and you will do anything better, even high intensity activities or stressful situations.

Do you assign deadlines - a specific date rather than “by the end of the month” - to each to-do item?

Deadlines are the enemy of procrastination. They motivate us to take action and finish tasks. They also help us to gauge the effectiveness of our time management efforts. If we’re consistently getting important things done on time, we must be doing something right.

The physical symptoms of being triggered are meant to fade as an angry mammoth retreats or a pressing deadline passes. Unfortunately, many humans have become accustomed to operating under low-grade stress (constant cortisol).

However, despite this stability, we assembled a list of the difficulties and pressures of modern life that we particularly recognised. Deadlines, travel, the stress of flying, the lure of money, a fear of dying, and the problems of mental instability spilling over into madness . . . Armed with this list Roger went off to continue working on the lyrics. Compared to the rather piecemeal approach of our previous albums, which had often been conceived in an air of desperation rather than inspiration, this felt like a considerably more constructive way of working. Continuing band discussions about the aims and aspirations of the record helped to fuel the process.

extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus. The way to get the most out of your work and your life is to go as small as possible. Most people think just the opposite. They think big success is time consuming and complicated. As a result, their calendars and to-do lists become overloaded and overwhelming. Success starts to feel out of reach, so they settle for less. Unaware that big success comes when we do a few things well, they get lost trying to do too much and in the end accomplish too little. Over time they lower their expectations, abandon their dreams, and allow their life to get small. This is the wrong thing to make small. You have only so much time and energy, so when you spread yourself out, you end up spread thin. You want your achievements to add up, but that actually takes subtraction, not addition. You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects. The problem with trying to do too much is that even if it works, adding more to your work and your life without cutting anything brings a lot of bad with it: missed deadlines, disappointing results, high stress, long hours, lost sleep, poor diet, no exercise, and missed moments with family and friends—all in the name of going after something that is easier to get than you might imagine. Going small is a simple approach to extraordinary results, and it works. It works all the time, anywhere and on anything. Why? Because it has only one purpose—to ultimately get you to the point. When you go as small as possible, you’ll be staring at one thing. And that’s the point. 2 THE DOMINO EFFECT “Every great change starts like falling dominoes.” —BJ Thornton In Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, on Domino Day, November 13, 2009, Weijers Domino Productions coordinated the world record domino fall by lining up more than 4,491,863 dominoes in a dazzling display.

When we are given the space, as Parkinson’s Law dictates, we expand our work to fill the time. Set aggressive deadlines so that you are actually challenging yourself on a consistent basis, and you’ll avoid this pitfall. A long deadline also typically means a sustained level of background stress—push yourself to finish early and free your mind.

Under the pressure of deadlines, often self-created through procrastination, people suffer greater stress, make more mistakes, and have to redo more tasks than under any other conditions.

When you believe that stress is harmful, anything that feels a bit stressful can start to feel like an intrusion in your life. Whether it’s waiting in line at the grocery store, rushing to meet a deadline at work, or planning a holiday dinner for your family, everyday experiences can start to seem like a threat to your health and happiness. [...] These are normal and expected parts of life, but we treat them as if they are unreasonable impositions, keeping our lives from how they should really be.

Team meetings are a major source of open communication and information sharing between team members, hence, it is critical that team meetings are run as effectively as possible. The following guidelines will help ensure that team meetings are effective: Set an agenda before each meeting. Make sure that the agenda is communicated to each team member before the meeting, especially if they are to present something at the meeting. Allocate time allotments to each subject to ensure that the team stays focused Ensure that each member of the team contributes to the discussion or invite them to join in Stress that all views need to be heard Open each meeting by going over the purpose, objectives, and agenda of the meeting. Stress how the meeting ties into the overall goals and purpose of the team Bring closure to each agenda item. Do not let discussions remain open. Open items or viewpoints not mentioned in a meeting will creep into hallway discussions and could lead to tension within the team If decisions need to be made in the meeting, drive the discussion so that the team reaches a decision. Use the teams agreed upon method of decision making to make the final discussion (majority rule, consensus, small group, or leader) End each meeting with an action plan. Make sure that during the meeting action items are taken. Go over the actions taken in each meeting and make sure that the individual that was given the action agrees to the action item and deadline Publish meeting minutes and the action log and date for the next meeting within a timely fashion after the meeting. In the meeting minutes, publish the items discussed and all decisions made. Meeting minutes are a good way to show team progress and to keep as an active record for future meetings and discussions.

In general, poor PFC function leads people to make repetitive mistakes. Their actions are not based on experience, or forethought, but rather on the moment. The moment is what matters. This phrase comes up over and over with my ADD patients. For many people with ADD, forethought is a struggle. It is natural for them to act out what is important to them at the immediate moment, not two moments from now or five moments from now, but now! A person with ADD may be ready for work a few minutes early, but rather than leave the house and be on time or a few minutes early, she may do another couple of things that make her late. Likewise, a person with ADD may be sexually attracted to someone he just met, and even though he is married and his personal goal is to stay married, he may have a sexual encounter that puts his marriage at risk. The moment was what mattered. In the same vein, many people with ADD take what I call a crisis management approach to their lives. Rather than having clearly defined goals and acting in a manner consistent to reach them, they ricochet from crisis to crisis. In school, people with ADD have difficulty with long-term planning. Instead of keeping up as the semester goes along, they focus on the crisis in front of them at the moment—the next test or term paper. At work they are under continual stress. Deadlines loom and tasks go uncompleted. It seems as though there is a need for constant stress in order to get consistent work done. The constant stress, however, takes a physical toll on everyone involved (the person, his or her family, coworkers, employers, friends, etc.).

There’s only one activity that stimulates the brain to produce all seven at the same time, and that’s the ecstatic state of flow. The shortest way there is deep, alpha-driven meditation. When you blend all seven into a single cocktail, the result is euphoria. Let’s see: What might a combination of the first letters of each drug look like? Serotonin, Oxytocin, Norepinephrine, Dopamine, Anandamide, Nitric oxide, and Beta-endorphin? Just for fun, let’s combine them, and call our cocktail’s special blend SONDANoBe. This is the magic formula that, produced inside our own bodies in the proper ratios, bathes the brain in the chemicals of ecstasy. GETTING HIGH ON YOUR OWN SUPPLY When I meditate, I can feel the moment when each drug in the cocktail kicks in. First, I use EFT tapping and release any and every negative thought, emotion, and energy. This drops my level of cortisol, along with suppressing the high beta brain waves of stress. I now have a molecular substrate in my brain upon which I can build a deep and focused meditative experience. Next, I close my eyes and focus. Dopamine kicks in as I anticipate the delicious hormone and neurotransmitter drug cocktail I’m about to be rewarded with. The dopaminergic reward system of my brain fires up and the “body learning” of how to meditate—stored in my basal ganglia, which memorize frequently performed actions—comes online. Ingredient one. My mind starts to wander. My email inbox. The morning’s first meeting. The laugh line of the movie I watched last night. An overdue deadline. Damn, I’m way out of the zone already, cortisol rising, and I haven’t been meditating more than 5 minutes. Dopamine brings me back to focus, aided by norepinephrine. I’m motivated. I want Bliss Brain more than I want an endless loop of the Me Show. I return to center. Cortisol drops. Ahhh, I’m back. Norepinephrine stimulates my attention. Ingredient two. Then I realize that my body is uncomfortable. I have a twinge in my right knee. My lower back hurts. My tummy’s rumbling because it’s empty. I consciously shift my wandering mind back into focus. Back in sync, my neurons secrete beta-endorphin, which masks the pain. The discomfort drops away, and being in a body feels wonderful. Ingredient three. I tune in to each of the archetypal strands that guide me. Mother Mary. Kwan Yin. Healing. Strength. Beauty. Wisdom. I imagine myself meditating in a field of a million saints. I’m lost in Bliss Brain, as serotonin, the satisfaction drug, kicks in. Ingredient four. I feel one with the universe. Oxytocin starts to flow, as I bond with everything. Ingredient five. That releases nitric oxide and anandamide. Ingredients six and seven.

By setting yourself early deadlines, not only are you always challenging yourself, but you also put yourself under pressure to finish early, which frees you from the stress of rushing at last minute to meet deadlines.

Ato-do list without deadlines is a wish list. Nothing more. Without deadlines, we lean toward inaction.

Deadlines are the enemy of procrastination. They motivate us to take action and finish tasks.

The problem with trying to do too much is that even if it works, adding more to your work and your life without cutting anything brings a lot of bad with it: missed deadlines, disappointing results, high stress, long hours, lost sleep, poor diet, no exercise, and missed moments with family and friends— all in the name of going after something that is easier to get than you might imagine.

Deadlines bring focus, forcing us to make time for the achievements we would otherwise postpone, encouraging us to reach beyond our conservative estimates of what we think possible, helping us to wrench victory from the jaws of sleep.

Ato-do list without deadlines is a wish list. Nothing more. Without deadlines, we lean toward inaction. Deadlines do more than just impose

The beauty of mindfulness is that it gives you permission to feel all the things. The dirty things, the pretty things, the ugly things. We’re allowed. We’re allowed to be angry if someone cuts in front of us in a queue, and think a little ‘fuck you’. We’re allowed to be sad for no reason. It’s normal to be stressed when we’re on an almighty deadline.

It’s important to note that stress is not always bad. The adrenaline that stress triggers helps us deliver a great talk to a large group of people or keeps us alert to finish that demanding project by its deadline.

Second, come up with a reason for each due date. For example, suppose it’s summertime and your child is due for a dental checkup. You’d probably want to schedule a dentist appointment by August 31 to ensure it gets done before your child returns to school. You have a reason to act. The reason makes the deadline genuine. When a deadline is set without a reason - that is, the date is arbitrarily chosen - there’s less impetus to take action. The sense of urgency is artificial.

It doesn’t seem like it hurts if you put off your studies a little longer. Or spend another “few minutes” on social media. But if you get used to procrastinating, it will make learning harder, because you will have less time when you do buckle down to learn. You’ll get stressed, miss deadlines, and not learn things properly. You can get really behind. All this will make you a less effective student.

An Introduction to Being an HSP “I can’t take the stress at work anymore. My coworker at the next desk talks all day long in a loud, abrasive voice, and my boss keeps demanding that I meet his rigid deadlines. I leave work every day feeling drained, and jittery, with my stomach tied up in knots.” “Everyone in my family is always running around trying some new adventure while I like to stay home. I feel like there’s something wrong with me because I usually don’t like to go out after work or on weekends.

On the most basic level, Toy Story 2 was a wakeup call. Going forward, the needs of a movie could never again outweigh the needs of our people. We needed to do more to keep them healthy. As soon as we wrapped the film, we set about addressing the needs of our injured, stressed-out employees and coming up with strategies to prevent future deadline pressures from hurting our workers again. These strategies went beyond ergonomically designed workstations, yoga classes, and physical therapy. Toy Story 2 was a case study in how something that is usually considered a plus—a motivated, workaholic workforce pulling together to make a deadline—could destroy itself if left unchecked. Though I was immensely proud of what we had accomplished, I vowed that we would never make a film that way again. It was management’s job to take the long view, to intervene and protect our people from their willingness to pursue excellence at all costs. Not to do so would be irresponsible.

Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air and saying, ‘Enough!’ I immediately feel my brain seizing up when I do that. Then, instead of being smart in handling the workload, it’s easy to make bad decisions,” he says. “You can end up catastrophizing, worrying about worst-case scenarios like missing deadlines and even losing your job. None of which helps you think any more clearly.” It’s a good description of how stressful it feels when our brain’s deliberate system gets swamped with demands, and how the resulting tumble into defensive mode makes it hard to be our most sensible selves.

As you look at potential leaders, try to assess their capacity in the following areas: Stress Management - their ability to withstand and overcome pressure, failure, deadlines, and obstacles Skill - their ability to get specific tasks done Thinking - their ability to be creative, develop strategy, solve problems, and adapt Leadership - their ability to gather followers and build a team Attitude - their ability to remain positive and tenacious amidst negative circumstances As a leader, your goal should be to identify what their capacity is, recognize what they think their capacity is, and motivate, challenge, and equip them in such as way that they close the gap between the two.