Pressure makes your world shrink to the next deadline. Remember there’s a whole life past Friday.

Under pressure the mind narrows usefully and then keeps narrowing past the point of usefulness. Everything beyond the immediate deadline stops feeling real, which is why a bad exam can feel like the end of a life rather than the end of a week. The narrowing is a side effect of concentrating, not an accurate picture. Everything outside the frame is still there.

Put one thing in the calendar for the week after the deadline, and make it something ordinary you will look forward to. A game, a film, a friend, a long sleep. A fixed point past Friday keeps Friday the right size.