Another quick-reading corporate "philosophy" book: The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. Nothing to complain about, other than perhaps a lack of original thought or inspired prose. The subtitle summarizes the thesis: "Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal". The book is fast-reading with a chatty tone. The authors' advice is reasonable:

• emulate "interval training", with recovery time between high-stress situations
• be aware of and maintain one's physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy
• push the boundaries and go beyond one's normal limits to build capacity
• develop "positive rituals" to manage energy

The pointers are fine: early to bed and early to rise (hmmm, didn't somebody else suggest that long ago?), eat healthy, take breaks, be physically active, avoid negative habits, figure out what's important to you and fence off time for it, etc. All good; the challenge of course is not to know but to do. I suspect that neither this nor any similar book will soon solve that!

^z - 2010-03-26