Hard pressed / pushed

If you are hard pressed or hard pushed to do something, you experience great difficulty in doing it. Being pressed suggests being under pressure:

• It seems to me that the Labour government will be hard pressed to win the next election.
• We were hard pushed to complete all the preparations before the guests arrived.

Use of the adverb hard here suggests a lot of force being used against you. Note that hard also sometimes suggests physical force:

This door is inclined to stick, but if you push it hard, it will open.

pressed for time / money / etc

Pressed also collocates with time and money and other ideas in a similar way to hard pressed, suggesting difficulty:

• Are you pressed for time? If not, I suggest we have some lunch.
• This one's worn out. Why don't you buy a new one? ~ I'm a bit pressed for cash at the moment.
• It's not really her subject, but she says she could teach beginners Spanish if we're really pressed.