I do find that a little pressure helps keep me going. By a little, I mean an occasional How ya doin? Just that tiny reminder is enough to keep me focused. More pressure than that slows me down. I get angry , I get scared, I think about the pressure instead of the project. It takes me a half day to a full day to get settled back into productive work. The sooner I get to doing my Release Plan, the sooner I get back on trackbut I always lose some productivity, and not just the time it takes to do the Release Plan. The plan helps me; the pressure does not.
Theres a lesson here for us as recipients of pressure: respond with a Release Plan.
There may be a bigger lesson for us when we think of applying pressure to others: skip the pressure; just ask people to sit down with you and create a Release Plan.