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Tension positive and negative
There is a common belief that tension is bad, that quiet
and tranquillity are the goals for which we should strive.
Not really. Without tension nothing gets done. Quite and contentment are desirable (infact, a daily period of meditation is an excellent use of time), but there must be alternating periods of positive tension or you can slip into lethargy. What keeps a watch going is the tension on the mainspring.
Positive tension can take many forms: a deadline that must be met, an awareness that your work is going to be judged, a sense of competition with others. These pressures bring out the best in people, challenging them to use time as effectively as possible.
Good management involves building a reasonable amout of positive tension into your relationships with subordinates, and good self-mangement involves finding ways to put some pressure on yourself to perform. Making a public commitment to undertake a job on which you have been procrastinating, for example, is one way of putting pressure on yourself.
Negative tension is bad, of course. This produces harmful stress. Tension headaches and other ailments associated with stress are often a result of frustration growing out of poor time-management practices failure to set priorities, failure to plan ahead, failure to concentrate on a single item at a time, failure to delegate properly, indecision, failure to schedule periods of quiet time when you can tackle top-priority jobs without interruption. Such negative tension must be avoided at all costs.
- Edwin C. Bliss
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