Chill out! Working less may make you more productive

>>> more and more americans are choosing to skip vacation often because of overwhelming demands at work. employees left an average of 9.2 vacation days unused in 2012 , and there's growing research that this lack of down time could actually be hurting product activity on the job. in fact, experts say the best way to get more done may be to spend more time doing less. tony schwartz , ceo of the energy project subscribes to that thinking and has just written about it in numbs number of times. he's also the author of "the way we're working isn't working." good to see you.

>> good to see you.

>> i think a lot of people would theoretically -- -- would great with you, but what's like your central point here?

>> well, my central point is we need to make a paradigm shift . we have spend 200 years since the industrial revolution operating that more, bigger faster is better and time is the resource that accounts for whether or not you're effective. we need to shift that, because we've run out of time. now what we need to do is find ways to increase our energy. and in particularly to renew our energy, because lifetime energy unrenewed will run out.

>> but isn't there a whole psychology at work that would have to be changed because people feel like they need to be in the office for long hours, into you that shows the boss how dedicated they are, and they feel like they need to be available, and the blackberry is never far away or whatever device it is that they have, and that's what promotions are tied to, and that's what, you know, pay raises are tied to. wouldn't you have to change a whole way of thinks for people, as the sign says, to chill out?

>> without question you have to change the way of thinks, and it's a necessary shift. we are operating if a 2 isst century world with 20th century work pas. they're obs sleet. we have a world in this orgzization like apple, google, koch, are coming to us and saying our people can't sustain it. it was maybe five years ago we had to chase organizations to get them interested in our work. today they're calling us, because they recognize there's an energy crisis .

>> well, part of it is sleep, and i don't know almost anyone who thinks they get enough sleep.

>> i do.

>> you get enough sleep. so you're the first one. how tied is that to all of this?

>> its absolutely the core. sleep is the moss undervalued behavior in the average person's life.

>> people brag about it, i get by on four, five hours of sleep a night.

>> a person that goes four days with five or fewer hours of sleep has about a zero percent chance of showing up with everything they've got at work. we have had made the assumption that one less hour of sleep means one more hour of product activity. that's nonsense. if you have depleted, you bring less creativity to the table, you bring less analytic power, you're less intelligent. everything sits on the foundation of sleep. if you're not sleeping, everything else is suffering.

>> there's something else i hear a lot from people. i get to work, i hit the ground running, i don't stop until i leave, but you recommend working in 90-minute intervals? why? why do you think that's effective?

>> because we need to align with the rhythms of our body. we have a rhythm called the arcadian rhythm. it operates you go from a high state of arousal, physiological awareness, and energy, slowly down into a physiological trough every 90 minutes . the body is screaming at us, chris, give me a break. we override it with caffeine, sugar, and our own stress hormones. we naturally refuel when the body wands to refuel, so when you're working, you can really work. when you're renewing, you're actually renewing.

>> none of us will change overnight, but a couple things for people to start in the right direction?

>> absolutely. i would say in your daily life, do in fact build in at least one or two real breaks where you actually get away from your desk, leave your blackberry or iphone behind and take some time to fully refuel. also i would say critical is to take vacations that actually restore you, so that when you go on vacation, you really leave the work behind. now, there are people who say i can't leave it behind. fine, if that's absolutely your belief, then pick a finite period during the day, deal with the work, and then let it go. the point is if you deep drawing down a bank account , you'll eventually go bankrupt.

>> tony schwartz , great to have you in.

>> thank you.