If you keep saying you work better under pressure, check whether you just work later.

The story that pressure sharpens you is comfortable, because it turns delay into a method. What usually happens is that the deadline finally makes the work non-optional, and you produce something under conditions that left no room to think or check. Adrenaline feels like focus. The result is often a first draft wearing a final draft’s clothes.

Try the same kind of task twice this month, once at the last minute and once finished two days early, then compare them honestly. Look at the errors, not the feeling. If the early version is better, move your own deadline forward and treat the real one as a buffer.