The Pharaohs Secret to Maximizing Your Productivity and Effectiveness

The scribes were the intellectuals of Ancient Egypt. They occupied the upper rungs of the social ladder and enjoyed recognition and respect accordingly.

The scribes were meticulous record keepers who wrote down every possible transaction. The precision with which they calculated quantities is impressive even by today’s standards. Scribes had to be good mathematicians, and their calculations of the labor and materials needed for major construction and building projects display a considerable degree of algebraic skill.

Scribes also worked for the government, recording numerous statistics about food production, harvests, and taxes for analysis and planning. Government officials were usually scribes who had worked their way up into higher government positions. By giving senior officials an overview of the country's total stocks, the scribes helped make possible their orderly distribution, the creation of reserves, and the planning for special projects.

Other documents from the scribe's pen included regulations issued by various governmental bodies, court proceedings, and records of private contracts dealing with sale and purchase, loans, hire, financial arrangements between spouses, inheritance, receipts, taxes, accounts, and so forth.

So what is the lesson here? The secret of productivity and effectiveness is to know your numbers! Studying your statistics is an important element for improving your results in life and business.

Most people walk through life without properly analyzing how they spend their time, money, and energy. That would be fine if they kept quiet and accepted their positions in life! But instead they complain that there just isn’t enough time to accomplish everything they want. Or they complain of not having enough money to buy the things they desire. Or they claim that they have limited energy and get exhausted quickly, and as a result they can’t spend leisure time with their family or friends.

Although you may have limited resources of time, money, and energy, you can still use them in the best way possible to achieve what is most important to you in your life. What you might be missing is the awareness of your daily habits and behaviors that would help you determine how you currently spend these resources. If you start calculating and keeping records of how you spend your time, money, and energy, you will be shocked by the huge amount of those resources being wasted on activities that are not important at all.

Statistics are not as complex as you might think. In this context, I use the word simply to mean keeping records and monitoring the trends of your daily activities to see how you spend your most valuable resources.

Practically speaking, I strongly advise you to keep LOGS of all your resources. The first should be a time log. For a period of one week, record every single activity you do. It might be difficult at the beginning, but keep it up. Come on, it’s just one week of commitment—and as a result you will experience a dramatic improvement in your productivity and effectiveness. You’ll learn a lot about yourself and your behavior. You’ll know where your hours go, when they are wasted, and when they are well spent. Once you have this awareness, it will be possible to allocate and plan your time to perform your most important activities and focus more time on your goals. You’ll know exactly how to take control of your time and how to save it for your desired outcomes.

For your personal finances, keep a log of your income and expenses for one month. Record every monetary transaction and, at the end of the month, study the results. You will be surprised. I am sure you’ll find some expenses and credit card usage that weren’t necessary at all. You’ll have a better view on how to use your money more effectively. You’ll have more control over your finances and will be able to save money for what you really want and need. This awareness of where your money goes and where it comes from is essential for better money management and wealth creation. Warren Buffett says that the very first rule of investing is "Don't lose money."

For your energy, keep a one-week log of your energy levels! This concept might be new to you, so let me explain. Every day, keep a log of the hours in which you were fully alert and active and those in which you were lazy or tired. Draw two lines on a sheet of paper, one vertical and one horizontal. On the horizontal axis, write the hours of the day from the moment you wake up in the morning until you go to sleep at night. On the vertical axis, write the numbers from 0 to 10. These numbers represent your energy level, with 10 meaning fully active and 0 meaning fully exhausted.

Now, for every hour on the horizontal axis (which represents the current hour in your day), put a mark next to the number from 0 to 10 that represents your energy level for that hour. At the end of the day, draw a curve by connecting the points you marked. This curve will show you your energy level throughout the day. Repeat this process every day so that you can recognize the pattern of your average energy curve. This way you will know your general active hours and lazy hours.

You may ask, “What is the purpose of knowing my energy level curve?” Simply by scheduling your most important tasks of the day— those that need a lot of effort and concentration—during your most active hours, you will become ultra-productive. Save the easy or unimportant tasks for the lazy hours when your energy and concentration are low. Do you see how this can make you ultra-productive? How often have you spent your most active moments doing routine or easy tasks, essentially wasting those productive hours on activities that require minimum effort and concentration? And then, when the time comes to do heavy tasks, you find yourself exhausted. That’s when you start to procrastinate and perform low-quality work.

Do you see how your statistics can be turned into massive success?

These examples can be applied to business as well, especially the money log. You should monitor your profits, income, and expenses. You should study your accounting figures and your balance sheets.

I have a story for you that will illustrate how knowing your numbers and recording your statistics can result in a profit boost without acquiring more customers or selling more products!

I have a friend who works in stationery distribution. Every year he used to purchase a huge stock of stationery and keep it in his inventory. His yearly profits were low, but he settled for them because at least his business was profitable. One day he decided to hire an accounting firm to record his finances and cash flow and provide a report of his financial position at the end of the year—and that’s when he got quite a shock! The accounting firm confirmed that the year had been very profitable. “Oh, that’s good!” my friend said. But wait—it wasn’t that good.

The accounting firm told my friend that he has an excess of money held hostage in the form of unused inventory. Almost 50% of his inventory stock is not used at all! So, for the next year, they advised him to buy only 50-60% of the amount of stock he used to buy every year. And guess what the result was? That’s right—50% of his wasted money in unused inventory will go directly into his profits for the new year!

Can you see how knowing your numbers and recording your stats can result in dramatic improvements in your life and business?

Starting today, keep logs of your time, money, and energy. The information you learn will allow you to have more control over the way you use your resources. You’ll achieve better results and you’ll experience a dramatic acceleration of success.

The pharaohs realized this secret thousands of years ago, and they made sure to dedicate their most intellectual human resources to doing their record keeping and statistical analysis. Now it’s time for you to follow the pharaohs’ code to maximize your productivity and effectiveness and turn your statistics into massive success.