Allen, the author of the best seller Getting Things Done, and Schwartz, the author of the best seller Be Excellent at Anything and the CEO of The Energy Project, are two of the world's foremost authorities on increasing personal efficiency. Yet although they agree on much, their ideas on how to maximize the output of knowledge workers are fundamentally different. In this edited conversation with HBR, they discuss their own approaches and what they've learned from each other's work, along with subjects ranging from the distractive pull of e-mail to the benefits of napping in the middle of the workday. Allen has developed a system of time management that encourages workers to regularly make to-do lists-and helps them blast through the items on them. Breaking down big tasks into smaller "next actions" can help people stay focused and productive, he argues, and multitasking is to be avoided at all costs: We have only so many resources and can do only one thing well at a time. Schwartz focuses on workers' attitudes and how organizations can help them achieve a mental state that keeps their energy high. People should work for 90 minutes and then take a break to recover, he says. They should tackle their most important task first thing in the morning. And managers should consider themselves "chief energy officers," inspiring and regularly recharging the people they lead-while remembering to meet their own needs as well.

Companies are experiencing a crisis in employee engagement. One of the problems is all the pressure companies are putting on employees to produce. Workers are trying to get more done in less time-and are burning out. But while time is finite, energy is not; people can increase their reserves of personal energy. The key is to establish rituals-such as shutting down your e-mail for a couple of hours a day so you can focus on priorities, or taking a daily 3 p.m. walk to get a breather-that renew your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy. These behavioral changes are sustainable, though, only if leaders at the most senior levels of an organization are willing to set a context for them, both by creating their own rituals and by setting a tone where people feel safe taking time out of the day on a regular basis. This is just what the leaders of Sony Pictures Entertainment did. Working with Tony Schwartz of the Energy Project, they implemented energy management training that has reached nearly half the company so far. To date, the reaction to the program has been overwhelmingly positive. Eighty-eight percent of participants say it has made them more focused and productive. More than 90% say it has helped them bring more energy to work every day. Eighty-four percent say they feel better able to manage their jobs' demands and are more engaged at work. Sony's leaders believe that these changes have helped boost the company's performance. Despite the recession, Sony Pictures had its most profitable year ever in 2008 and one of its highest revenue years in 2009.

As the demands of the workplace keep rising, many people respond by putting in ever longer hours, which inevitably leads to burnout that costs both the organization and the employee. Meanwhile, people take for granted what fuels their capacity to work--their energy. Increasing that capacity is the best way to get more done faster and better. Time is a finite resource, but energy is different. It has four wellsprings--the body, emotions, mind, and spirit--and in each, it can be systematically expanded and renewed. In this article, Schwartz and McCarthy of the Energy Project describe how to establish rituals that will build energy in the four key dimensions. For instance, harnessing the body's ultradian rhythms by taking intermittent breaks restores physical energy. Rejecting the role of a victim and instead viewing events through three hopeful lenses defuses energy-draining negative emotions. Avoiding the constant distractions that technology has introduced increases mental energy. And participating in activities that give you a sense of meaning and purpose boosts the energy of the spirit. The new workday rituals succeed only if leaders support their adoption, but when that happens, the results can be powerful. A group of Wachovia Bank employees who went through an energy management program outperformed a control group on important financial metrics like loans generated, and they reported substantially improved customer relationships, productivity, and personal satisfaction. These findings corroborated anecdotal evidence gathered about the effectiveness of this approach at other companies, including Ernst & Young, Sony, and Deutsche Bank. When organizations invest in all dimensions of their employees' lives, individuals respond by bringing all their energy wholeheartedly to work--and both companies and their people grow in value.

Management theorists have long sought to identify precisely what makes some people flourish under pressure and others fold. But they have come up with only partial an­swers: rich material rewards, the right cul­ture, management by objectives. The prob­lem with most approaches is that they deal with people only from the neck up, con­necting high performance primarily with cognitive capacity. Authors Loehr and Schwartz argue that a successful approach to sustained high performance must con­sider the person as a whole. Executives are, in effect, "corporate athletes." If they are to perform at high levels over the long haul, they must train in the systematic, multilevel way that athletes do. Rooted in two decades of work with world-class athletes, the integrated theory of performance management addresses the body, the emotions, the mind, and the spirit through a model the authors call the per­formance pyramid. At its foundation is phys­ical well-being. Above that rest emotional health, then mental acuity, and, finally, a spiritual purpose. Each level profoundly influences the others, and all must be ad­dressed together to avoid compromising performance. Rigorous exercise, for in­stance, can produce a sense of emotional well-being, clearing the way for peak mental performance. Rituals that promote oscilla­tion - the rhythmic expenditure and recov­ery of energy - link the levels of the pyramid and lead to the ideal performance state. The authors offer case studies of execu­tives who have used the model to increase professional performance and improve the quality of their lives. In a corporate envi­ronment that is changing at warp speed, performing consistently at high levels is more necessary than ever. Companies can't afford to address employees' cognitive ca­pacities while ignoring their physical, emo­tional, and spiritual well-being.