Time pressure is a challenge for professional translators and deserves systematic consideration in translator training. Until now, time pressure has played only a marginal role in translation studies: To my knowledge, there are only three (series of) studies, of limited scope, conducted by Hönig/Hansen, Jensen and de Rooze. Their experimental designs are analysed in this paper and compared to the author’s own methodological findings. It was found that, in order to obtain valid research results, research results from several disciplines, especially from time-pressure research and endocrinology, must be consistently applied. The main challenges of time-pressure studies are (1) adequately measuring timepressure and (2) creating a situation with no more than one variable parameter. This paper reflects on how the time-pressure variable can be operationalised in order to establish experimental situations where acute and moderate time-pressure is experienced by the subjects. The question of which parameters must remain constant in a valid experimental design is also discussed. The paper concludes by arguing that, at present, no time-pressure study can attempt to obtain more than tentative correlations between time pressure and translation performance. Neuroscientific methods may, however, provide us with a more suitable methodological framework for assessing perceived time pressure in the near future.