5 Tips for Focusing Your Energy During a Work Crunch

We’ve all been there. Several important deadlines fall in the same week, late hours at the office pile up, stress builds to a breaking point. The dreaded work crunch—a perfect storm of pressure that tends to happen in every office at least a couple of times each year.

It’s a manager’s job to steady the ship and steer the crew through these rough patches, but even the most seasoned bosses can occasionally feel overwhelmed by a bad crunch. That’s okay. The Harvard Business Review has collected some useful tips to help you harness your adrenaline and purposefully direct it for maximum positive impact. So the next time you’re feeling the squeeze, take a deep breath and apply these techniques:

Accept the situation. One of the key mistakes people make during a stressful period is failing to step back and take stock of what’s going on. A sense of impending pressure often creates an impulse to barrel along without really thinking things through, but it’s important to assess the situation and develop a thoughtful plan for moving forward. As HBR puts it, “Acceptance does not mean giving in. On the contrary, it means acknowledging the reality of the situation with awareness so that you can take clear action.”

Take control by making choices. Rather than letting your situation dictate your next move by taking steps that provide short-term relief but don’t really make a dent in your workload (like frantically responding to emails as they come in), think about what your most important priorities are and what you can do to get them accomplished. These decisions will often come with trade-offs that make for difficult choices, but the sooner you make them, the sooner you can move forward. Don’t forget to take your own personal well-being into account–after all, if you’re not functioning effectively it’s hard to get much done. Ask yourself:

-What are the 1–2 things that are mission critical today?
-What is something I can do to recharge my battery (get to bed early one night this week, listen to my favorite music while working, or catch a nap on a plane)?
-Who or what will I have to say “no” to during this time?

Communicate, communicate, communicate. Take the extra few minutes to stay in contact with your colleagues through your time of stress. Managers sometimes go incommunicado when there’s a lot on their plate, but maintaining constant communication can help everything run smoother. Loop team members in on a regular basis so they know when deadlines need to be extended or pushed up. If you know you won’t be able to communicate during a big day full of meetings, let your team know in advance so they don’t expect an immediate response. Most importantly, know when and how to ask for support. Take it from HBR: ” Many of us pride ourselves on not bothering others and being self-reliant. These are great qualities, but there are times when we need to ask for help. Ask your loved ones for more help on the home front. Share the weight of the accountability for projects with your colleagues by delegating or teaming up, versus doing it all on your own.”