Line cooks in a dinner rush don’t panic. They work one ticket at a time, and somehow the whole wall clears.

Panic comes from looking at the whole wall of tickets at once. The rush is real, but nobody cooks a wall; they cook one plate, then the next, and the size turns out to be a story more than a workload. Calm under pressure is mostly a narrowing of attention, practiced enough times that it becomes automatic.

When everything is due at the same time, write it down and then cover the list with your hand. Work the top item only. Let the wall clear the way it always does, one plate at a time.