The Stress Test: Why Systems Beat Strategies

What happens when pressure reveals your default programming

I'm coming out of a long, rewarding week hosting several family members for Thanksgiving. I'm sure this is relatable, but as lovely a time as it was, there was a natural increase in stress and a natural decrease in allotted time for goals. As I'm putting the final touches on this letter, my brother and his family are getting ready to go to the airport.

No, I didn't miraculously write this entire newsletter this morning. And I didn't have time to write it while family was in town.

I wrote it weeks ago, along with four others. When the week got chaotic, I didn't scramble. I chose the best one from my backlog and scheduled it. The system handled the stress so I didn't have to.

That's what this newsletter is about: building systems before you need them so you can execute when pressure hits.

The Biology of Pressure

I once saw a discussion about leadership resilience where someone asked: "What does staying conscious during stress actually look like?"

Most answers focused on stress management techniques—breathing exercises, staying calm, thinking clearly under pressure.

When stress hits, James Clear says, "you don't rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems."

During high-stress moments, your brain shifts into survival mode. Blood flow moves from your prefrontal cortex (where you make thoughtful decisions) to your amygdala (where you react to threats).

You have seconds, not minutes, to respond. People are depending on you. Information is incomplete.

This is not the time to figure out your decision-making process.

Yet most people approach stress like it's a thinking problem. "I just need to stay calm and think clearly." But stress isn't designed to let you think clearly. Stress is designed to make you act quickly with limited information.

That's why I don't try to write newsletters during stressful weeks. My prefrontal cortex isn't available for creative thinking—it's managing logistics, responding to family needs, handling the immediate.

The system works because I do the thinking when my brain is calm, then execute the simple work (choose and schedule) when my brain is stressed.

What Stress Actually Reveals

Stress comes from constraints: too little time, not enough resources, too many competing priorities, and incomplete information.

Notice what's missing? Clear processes for handling constraints.

Most people treat each stressful situation like it's unique, requiring a custom solution invented in real-time. But constraints are predictable. 

The specific details change, but the underlying patterns repeat.

I learned this in the classroom over 17 years of teaching. Early in my career, I'd panic when lessons went wrong, students acted up, or parents complained. I was trying to think my way through each crisis individually.

Over time, I built systems: clear consequences I applied consistently, communication protocols with parents, and decision frameworks for when to escalate problems vs. handle them independently.

The transformation wasn't that problems stopped happening. It's that I stopped being surprised by them and reactive to them.

Systems vs. Strategies

Here's the crucial difference:

Strategy: "I'll write my newsletter Tuesday mornings when I have time."

System: "I batch-write 4-5 newsletters monthly, maintain a backlog, and schedule from inventory on publishing day."

The strategy breaks the moment Tuesday gets disrupted (family visits, work crisis, you're sick). The system works regardless of what Tuesday brings because the hard work already happened.

Strategies depend on conditions being right. Systems work when conditions are wrong.

Process Over Outcomes

A systematic approach doesn't look impressive in the moment. Nobody watching me this week thinks "wow, he's crushing it"—they just see me hosting family, going through normal life.

The system is invisible. The outcome (newsletter published on time) looks easy.

That's the point.

When you build processes in advance:

• Your communication happens automatically (scheduled)

• Your decisions are made when you're clearheaded (which newsletter fits this week?)

• Your execution is simple (click send)

You're not superhuman. You're systematic.

And here's what people miss: the system doesn't just handle newsletter publishing. The same principle works everywhere: meals, workouts, difficult conversations, financial decisions.

Design the process when you're calm. Execute it when you're not.

Your Stress Audit

Looking at the areas where stress hits you regularly:

What decisions can you make in advance?
(Like: Which 5 newsletters are ready to publish vs. which topic to write about on deadline)

What can you batch when you have capacity?
(Like: Meal prep on Sunday vs. deciding what to eat when you're already hungry)

What simple execution can replace complex thinking?
(Like: "Choose from backlog" vs. "Write something good right now")

The goal isn't to eliminate stress. It's to move the hard thinking to when you have bandwidth, so stress moments only require simple execution.

The best time to build these systems is when you don't need them. I didn't build my newsletter backlog during Thanksgiving week. I built it in October when I had thinking capacity.

When stress hits, that's when you execute what you already built.

What's one system you need to build before you need it?

The system you build in calm moments is what carries you through chaotic ones. Hit reply and tell me what system you're going to build this week. I read every response.

-Ricky