The Stress Junkie: why you keep yourself on the edge

You produce your best work at the last minute. Under pressure, everything suddenly goes faster, sharper, better, and you often surprise yourself at what you can achieve in two hours when you actually had two days to do it. Calm, predictable periods, on the other hand, feel uncomfortable, almost tedious. You naturally start to wonder if there isn’t something you’re overlooking. So, without consciously planning it, you keep ensuring that things stay exciting.

That’s no coincidence, and certainly not a weakness of character. A looming deadline gives you a rush that a calm schedule never will: your body releases adrenaline, your focus sharpens, and the feeling of ‘I have to do this now’ is almost pleasant. Chaos feels familiar, and what’s more, it gives you a role to play: the one who saves the day at the last minute, the hero of the day. That’s a nice role to be in.

Why this happens

It’s just an expensive role, because the price you pay is that ordinary, everyday tasks lose all their appeal without the thrill. You put them off until they too have become a crisis, and only then do they feel worth tackling. The strange thing is that, as a result, a stress junkie sometimes actively resists calm and clarity, even though on paper that would be much more pleasant. Working in a systematic and predictable way feels boring, and ‘boring’ is almost a dirty word to a stress junkie.

There’s also a need for attention lurking within this pattern. Getting attention when you pull back from the brink just in the nick of time feels different from getting attention for work that’s been completed calmly and on time. That makes it tempting to let things get that far time and time again, even though there’s a real risk that it might go wrong one day.

The strength you mustn’t lose

Stress junkies are rarely afraid of complex challenges; they are courageous and possess plenty of energy and strength, which enables them to cope well even with tight, unexpected deadlines. That courage is valuable, especially in work where things do occasionally go wrong. The point isn’t that you should lose that edge; the point is that you don’t always have to create it yourself before you can get started.

What could you do differently tomorrow?

For a task that you normally leave until the last minute, deliberately build in an earlier, artificial deadline. For example, agree with a colleague that you’ll show them a draft version by four o’clock tomorrow afternoon, even if it isn’t finished yet. That gives you a sense of urgency and accountability that doesn’t depend on an impending disaster, yet provides just enough motivation to get moving.

And the next time everything is running smoothly and you find that this calm is making you restless: ask yourself whether you’re making a task seem bigger or more urgent than it actually is, purely to make things exciting again. That question alone breaks part of the pattern, because it reveals that the crisis is sometimes fuelled by yourself, not by the situation.

One final tip: if you find yourself constantly putting off a task, try consciously starting it at a time when there’s absolutely no pressure, just to see how it feels. Not to make it a habit straight away, but to discover that work done without a sense of urgency can still yield results – perhaps even with less stress afterwards.

Is this you? See if you are, with my free test to determine your procrastination type.