Stress in the Creative Process

This blog reflects on the outcome of an explorative study funded by a Kiem MV grant, conducted by the Human Performance Management research group at the Department of Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in collaboration with Platform Acct. The project investigates the working conditions and psychological demands of designers active in complex societal transition challenges, in domains such as urban development, sustainability, public health, and social innovation. Designers in these contexts are expected to navigate ambiguity, manage diverse stakeholder dynamics, and deliver creative output under conditions that are rarely stable. Yet the psychological cost of this work remains underexposed in both research and professional practice.
As part of this project, in-depth interviews were conducted with designers working in transition contexts. Rather than asking about job satisfaction, the interviews focused on friction: what drains energy, when do you get blocked, what keeps you up at night? The common thread is clear: stress arises because designers carry a strong drive to create impact, while the field can feel overwhelming and lacking in sufficient structure and support. To avoid treating these stressors as isolated complaints, we organized them into five clusters along the Job Demands-Resources framework (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007): cognitive, interpersonal, quantitative, qualitative, and external dependencies.

Cognitive Stressors

The stress of a mind that never stops.
Designers describe complexity as something that grows exponentially: more actors, more relationships, more interdependencies. In societal transition challenges, getting up to speed is not a phase, it is a bottomless pit. The consequence is continuous switching between understanding, interpreting, and delivering, while decisions must be made when success criteria are not yet clearly defined. This makes choices difficult to carry, not only intellectually, but morally. Am I making this better, or am I making it worse? Research confirms that ambiguous creative demands increase cognitive load and stress, particularly when outcomes cannot be guaranteed (Byron et al., 2010).

Interpersonal Stressors

The stress of collaboration without clear rules of engagement.
Many designers identify role ambiguity as a central source of tension: am I expected to be a designer, researcher, process facilitator, or advisor? When this is not made explicit, continuous repositioning becomes necessary, consuming significant energy in expectation management. Kundu et al. (2021) found that low role clarity is negatively associated with innovative work behavior, a finding that resonates strongly across the interviews. Alongside this, designers describe a recurring experience of having to prove their value, not once, but repeatedly. Kim et al. (2023) showed that creative ideation simultaneously heightens feelings of autonomy and fear of judgment, a tension that is structurally present in this kind of work.

Quantitative Stressors

The stress of too much at once, irregularity, and deadlines.
Designers describe overload: multiple projects in parallel, frequent ad hoc switching, and peripheral tasks that collectively consume the day. This fragmentation breaks creative work into pieces. A recurring pattern is what designers call creativity on command: output is expected at fixed moments, while the creative process is inherently irregular. Because creative practitioners are, in a sense, always switched on, a good idea can emerge at any moment, and every observation may feed into it. The boundary between working and not working becomes structurally blurred.

Qualitative Stressors

The stress of high standards in a process that resists being forced.
Clients frequently want maximum output combined with certainty about delivery, while the essence of design is that the outcome cannot yet be guaranteed. This mismatch turns projects into constant negotiation. Fathurrahman (2020) identified perfectionism as a recurring characteristic among design practitioners under pressure, not as a personality trait in isolation, but as a response to contextual demands. Because impact in complex assignments is often delayed, quality must be delivered without a direct feedback loop, which weighs particularly heavily when outcomes affect vulnerable systems or user groups.

External Dependencies

The stress of systems you do not own.
Designers name bureaucracy, opaque decision-making, and shifting priorities as structural stressors. Good work can be produced and still stall, simply because the environment does not move with it. The risk of work that evaporates weighs heavily: projects that stall, trajectories that end prematurely, results that end up on a shelf. This is experienced not merely as inefficiency, but as a loss of meaning.

Conclusion

These five clusters reveal something significant: these are not personal shortcomings. They are high task demands that are disproportionate to available resources, a pattern the Job Demands-Resources model identifies as a primary pathway to exhaustion and disengagement (Bakker et al., 2023). Those who deploy designers in complex transition challenges should not only assign work, but actively design the conditions for that work, including role clarity, mandate, feedback rhythms, and space for learning.
Stress does not decrease by working harder. Stress decreases when the work finally becomes clear.

References

Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The job demands-resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309–328.
Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Sanz-Vergel, A. (2023). Job demands–resources theory: Ten years later. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 10, 25–53.
Byron, K., Khazanchi, S., & Nazarian, D. (2010). The relationship between stressors and creativity: A meta-analysis examining competing theoretical models. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1), 201.
Fathurrahman, D. (2020). Time and designer: Unveiling design practitioners' characteristics on time management, perfectionism, procrastination, and burnout.
Kim, S., Goncalo, J. A., & Rodas, M. A. (2023). The cost of freedom: Creative ideation boosts both feelings of autonomy and the fear of judgment. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 105, 104432.
Kundu, S. C., Kumar, S., & Lata, K. (2021). Effects of perceived role clarity on innovative work behavior: A multiple mediation model. RAUSP Management Journal, 55, 457–472.