book review the one thing

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• Published on July 5, 2017

The ONE Thing Review: This Book Made Me Rethink Everything in My Business and My Life

Review : The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

I’m a bit of a nonfiction junkie when it comes to books.

I’ve been trying to read more fiction, but I always find myself going back to nonfiction books about marketing, running a small business, productivity, consulting and figuring out how to be my best self.

I recently read a book that combines all these topics into one super-engaging, sharply-designed package. It inspired me to take immediately action in my own life and I gave several copies to friends and family members I knew would appreciate it.

The ONE Thing Review

The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, is a life-improvement masterpiece. The aim of the book is to show you how to cut through the clutter of work, life, well-being, love, family, hobbies, free time, etc., and focus on the things that matter.

Cutting through clutter is a brilliant and important idea—but not a new one, right?

The ONE Thing gets at the topic in a way that’s different from anything else I’ve read or tried. It’s one of those strategies that’s painfully obvious, but Keller and Papasan have turned it into an effective system to improve any area of your life.

The Idea Behind The ONE Thing

The idea is to find the one thing, in any situation, that will allow you to produce extraordinary results. Take any area of your life and find the one action you can take, or focus you can shift, that makes everything else easier or unnecessary.

As Keller explains in the book, when you want the best chance to succeed at anything, your approach should always be to go small:

“Going small” is ignoring all the things you could do and doing what you should do. It’s recognizing that not all things matter equally and finding the things that matter most. It’s a tighter way to connect what you do with what you want. It’s realizing that extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus…When you go as small as possible, you’ll be staring at one thing. And that’s the point.

The ONE Thing, in a Nutshell

If I had to nutshell The ONE Thing strategy for you, I’d say take anything in your life, including your to-do list, your career goals, your spiritual practice, your family’s meal planning or a remodel of your home and give it a critical look. See where you have the most impact or success and where you’re wasting time or energy. Distill your actions down to the most powerful ones and let go of everything else.

But that’s just the nutshell. The ONE Thing will enlighten and inspire you far more than I can here, so I strongly suggest you pick a copy up, either from your local library, a local bookseller, Bookshop.org or Amazon .

Once you read it, let me know what you think and how you apply the strategy. I’m always curious to hear what kind of shifts it inspires in people.

The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results Get it on Amazon | Get it on Bookshop.org 

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The One Thing   – By Gary Keller with Jay Papasan

“ the one thing – the surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results”.

Get it now Here:

Fast Facts:

Pages : 235

First Published: 2013

Accolades: NYT Bestseller, WSJ #1 bestseller, Amazon #1 Best seller

What you will learn in one sentence:

“Focused effort on a single task always beats scattered effort and multi-tasking -especially in the long run ”

TLDR ; Should you read it? YES!

A book about cutting out the noise and distractions so you can focus on what is most important to you and your life. The One Thing is in essence a book about finding the single task which:

• Is most important to you,
• That you’re most passionate about
• And will benefit your life the most long-term

Then taking measures -sometimes even drastic- towards making sure that you spend your best hours focused on that one thing.

I once heard a saying which to me pretty well sums up this practice.. I can’t remember who wrote it but it goes something like this: “Some tasks in life may seem impossibly large to accomplish, but give a man an axe and if he just takes 5 chops every day eventually even the tallest tree will fall”

Gary and Jay go into much more detail than that throughout this book. They even state that you don’t need to limit yourself to one thing for life but more so knowing and taking action towards the one thing which you most need to do. It could be your one thing for the week or your one thing for your health/wealth/relationship etc. The real key is asking yourself intelligent questions.The most prevalent question referenced throughout the book is:

“What is the one thing I can do, such by doing it will make everything else easier or unnecessary”.

To frame that question better with some examples given in the book (page 114) it might be something like: “What is the one thing I can do, such by doing it will make everything else easier or unnecessary…. For my finances ” OR

…For my relationship

…For my business

…For my health

Gary and Jay argue that the difference between Ultra-Successful people and non-successful people isn’t a fundamental difference in intelligence, commitment, mindset or opportunity but that the difference is how those elements are applied. There are 24 hours in a day for everyone so it’s not that some people magically have more time, it’s that;

the ultra-successful have a better method for applying the time they have to achieve the task at hand.

They do this primarily in 3 ways:.

• They ask better questions to identify the most important task
• They utilise the power of Time Blocking .
• They do only the one task at one time. Focused effort instead of scattered effort.

What is time blocking?

Time blocking is the art -read discipline- of literally blocking out periods of time on your calendar for your one thing. Gary and Jay suggest 4-hour blocks, preferably first thing in the morning (when your mind is working best). Every day that time is 100% distraction-free and dedicated to your task. No emails, no calls, no interruptions.. Just laser focus to bring about extraordinary results in the long term.

Many excellent examples of time blocking can be found throughout the book and there is even a detailed illustration of how to set up and optimal time blocked calendar on page 162 (Fig 29.), Then another monthly check-off calendar example on page 169 a (as pictured below)

In summary I think what I’ve learned reading the one thing is that a simple philosophy is sometimes the solution to complex problems. That extreme discipline and focus, even if just for short periods, is far more effective than working more, working harder and working longer in a scattered manner.

I like to think of the daily practice of the one thing as a compounding investment of time and effort which will in the long run have a snowball effect and bring about far more fruitful results.

My Ratings:

Readability: 4/5

Content: 3.5/5

Business Helpfulness: 3.5/5

My Overall Score: 78%

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The One Thing: Summary & Review

In “The One Thing” Gary Keller’s promotes the idea that to succeed in life you need to focus on one thing in life and ruthlessly prioritize that one thing, while mostly forgetting about all the rest.

Bullet Summary

1. start out thinking big, 2. prioritize your tasks: pareto principle, 3. the one thing & the focusing question, 4. habits: the key to success, 5. focus on the one thing (until it’s done), 6. pay attention (and conserve) your willpower, 7. focusing on one thing means saying no to many others, 8. visualize the process, 9. let chaos pile up, real life applications.

• Focus on one important thing in your life (your one thing)
• Prioritize daily on what will have the biggest impact on your one thing
• Do one thing at a time

Full Summary

About the Author : Gary Keller is a successful American entrepreneur and author. He is the founder of Keller Williams a real estate company that, at one point, was the largest real estate company in the world by agent count and second in closed sales volume, and units sold. So, we may add, Gary Keller is speaking from experience when he talks about “focusing on your one thing”.

Think big .

Gary Keller tells the story of how Arthur Guinness (producer of Guinness beer) and J. K. Rowling (author of Harry Potter books) embarked on their life quest with huge expectations.

Guinness leased the beer factory for 9.000 years and Rowling envisioned seven books before even starting to write the first.

Keller says they were successful in no small part because they started out with huge vision and goals (also read: The Magic of Thinking Big ).

When You Think Small You Waste Your Potential

But what do most of us do instead?

We are intimidated by big thoughts and visions and we settle down for something “more realistic”. But when we settle down for “something more realistic” we lower our future trajectory and we settle down for less than we could.

Success requires action, of course. But action requires thought. That’s why we need to think big.

Success requires action; but action requires thoughts: Think BIG!

Many of us have either done or gone through a task list at one point or another in our lives.

The One Thing makes a great point on common mistakes when starting said task lists: tackling the easiest first, the first on the lists or the most time-consuming.

That’s a big mistake because not all tasks are the same.

Some won’t do much of a difference if at all, while some others can provide you with a quantum leap towards your goals.

That’s why we should all ruthlessly prioritize our tasks by the impact they will have on our goals.

Here’s the question to achieve just that:

What’s the ONE thing I can do, such that by doing it everything else will become easier or unnecessary?

And that’s exactly the principle behind The One Thing:

That simple question right there will do two things for you:

• Remind you of the one thing, your overarching goal you are after (long term)
• Help you prioritize in the short term what you need to do

Keller says that staying steadfast in the pursuit of your goal is not so much self-discipline as it is about habits.

Think of Michael Phelps , he says. He was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Such as, that he wasn’t able to focus on just one thing.

Instead, he focused on just one thing: swimming every day.

My Note: ADHD is a rather common diagnosis these days and not nearly as a handicap as The One Thing makes it out to be. However, the point is still valid.

Keller righteously says that once the habit has been formed it won’t take nearly as much discipline to maintain it. And after it becomes an established part of your life, you can go back to “cruise control” or, even better, focus on building another empowering habit (also read The Power of Habit ).

I like this quote on the subject:

Hard habits are difficult to build but make for an easy life. Easy habits don’t require any effort but make for a hard life. – Brian Tracy

Multitasking is not something to be proud of: multitasking saps our efficiency .

We can do a few things at the same time, yes, but one of those activities should be very easy. Like walking (doesn’t require focus) and talking complex issues on the phone (we can fully focus on the issues).

But talking about complex issues while writing on another complex issue does not work. We cannot multitask with two activities that require our full focus and attention… Unless we do both of them very sloppily .

Also, as Ferris says in The 4 Hour Workweek , we don’t work like computers CPU work and switching from one activity to another take time to re-adjust and we waste valuable time.

“Wasting time” doesn’t sound impressive enough to you?

Well, just think this: it’s estimated that office workers, interrupted on average every 11 minutes, spend one-third of the day recovering from distractions!

Don’t waste a third of your day: focus on one thing at a time.

My Note: while Keller is spot-on on multitasking, don’t let that discourage you from looking at all ways you can become more efficient. For example, when I am doing repetitive tasks on my laptop I do listen to audiobooks (for example: adding affiliate links on this page). And when I’m doing easier tasks such I might listen to easier Youtube videos.

Your willpower is like a fuel tank. It will run out after you’ve run with it for a long time.

It’s a phenomenon called ego depletion .

Keller says you must work with that in mind to be efficient: choose carefully what you need to pay attention to and do the most important things first.

My Note: I prefer the analogy of willpower as a muscle as it can also grow over time. Also the notion that willpower is limited has been challenged and you can read more in my pop-psychology article .

To focus on your one thing you must learn to say no to many more other projects and opportunities.

If you receive too many requests, think of ways to reduce them, or learn to say no without sounding mean about it. Bottom line is, you gotta say no to say yes to your one thing.

• Say no while maintaining a good relationship
• How to be assertive

Assertiveness: 6 Steps to Empowered Communication

These days everyone talks about the importance and usefulness of visualizing.

I liked though that Keller adds a further step to it: don’t just visualize your goal, but visualize the steps that will get you there.

Students who visualized themselves studying VS students who just visualized getting top grades reported higher levels of satisfaction while studying.

Keller says that as you focus on one thing your life will keep happening in the meanwhile. He says that, at a certain point, you should come to accept chaos as an inevitable part of life.

My Note: this resonated with me a lot as I read it.

I always used to feel bad about my house not being perfectly clean. Well, now I know that it’s a normal part of focusing on knowledge acquisition instead.

• Ruthless Prioritization

This is something that I’m really sold into.

I had a mindset where I often would keep my best moves for the future. That way I could lull myself in the idea that “the best is yet to come”. BS. Life is short, always ask yourself what’s the biggest bang for the buck you can do right now .

• Accept Some Chaos While You Purse Your One Thing

When you focus on one thing you know that you can expect other areas of your life to suffer. It’s OK.

This was a very important concept for me and now I accept more openly that, well, my house won’t be as perfectly clean as I like it to be.

Starting With Huge Vision?

The author picks a few examples to make the point you must start with huge vision. But that does not prove the effectiveness of the method (it’s a typical case of inductive reasoning fallacy, also read Fooled by Randomness ).

I can think of as many people who started with big dreams and got crushed by a much harsher reality than they expected.

As a matter of fact, I think that envisioning a huge goal come true before you even start can be dangerous because the first drawbacks can discourage you.

As Keller himself says, better to also focus on the hard work to get there. And as The One Thing itself quotes: the secret to getting ahead is getting started (even if you don’t have your grand vision yet).

The secret to getting ahead is getting started

It Makes Sense: To Succeed In A Highly Competitive World, You Must Focus On One Thing

The One Thing is somewhat of a happy crossover between Grit by Angela Duckworth (stay with one thing) and Start with WHY by Simon Sinek (find your one thing).

To which Keller adds ruthless prioritization.

The One Thing is a great book. Lots of wisdom and lots of sensible information to live a fulfilling and successful life.

It’s a five-star book (but I give it four stars here because I am adamant about keeping my 5 stars to a very limited number of books).

Read more summaries or get the book on Amazon

About The Author

Lucio Buffalmano

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Book Review: The ONE Thing – The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

Always interested in how to get more out of my day, I always felt I was missing something. I discovered this book while listening to Entrepreneurs on Fire —a podcast focusing on entrepreneurs. This book helped me find a clearer path to my goals. I have already started to apply some of the lessons to my work and I am happy with the results. I also forewarned my team that we would be using some of these ideas to knock out some of our team goals. 

This 240-page book is a quick and enjoyable read. Keller and Papasan have incorporated a wealth of stories that drive home the points they are trying to make. The book also pulls in quite a bit of research. In addition to a three chapter introduction, the book has three major parts: The Lies, The Truth, and Extraordinary Results. Overall, there are 18 chapters.

The ONE Thing

Keller and Papasan began with a story outlining Keller’s frustration of not being as successful as he wanted. His life changed when he focused on one question:

“What’s the ONE Thing , you can do this week such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?” (Keller & Papasan, 2012, p. 9).

He pointed out that when he began focusing on one thing, positive things began to happen. As Keller explained the power of dominoes, he noted that it was not only important to focus on the ONE Thing , it was important to focus on the right ONE Thing . What is the one thing that when completed would set up the success of the next one thing? In this introduction, Keller also highlighted different businesses and people who achieved great success because they focused on the ONE Thing .

In this part of the book, Keller focuses on “six lies between you and success” (Kelle & Papasanr, 2012, p. 30):

• Everything Matters Equally
• Multitasking
• A Disciplined Life
• Willpower is Always on Will-Call
• A Balanced Life

As Keller and Papasan addressed equality, they pointed out that to-do lists could be improved by turning them into “success lists.” We should be narrowing down our extensive to-do lists to the key items that will help us move whatever we are doing forward. They advocated narrowing it down even further to the One Thing that will make other items on the list unnecessary. As part of this discussion, they included Pareto’s Principle . This was a great discussion about focusing on the ONE Thing that will move you forward.

In the chapter on multitasking, Keller and Papasan presented a wealth of research showing how multitasking is a lie. Instead, we need to focus on tasks to completion, rather than trying to do many things at one time. They advocated for blocking out time to focus on the ONE Thing .

As Keller and Papasan spoke about discipline and habits, they noted that “You don’t need to be a disciplined person to be successful… Success is about doing the right thing, not about doing everything right.” (Keller & Papasan, 2012, p. 55).

One of the topics that really stood out to me was on the one on willpower. The authors explained that willpower was an essential attribute to leverage; however, willpower takes energy and depletes over the length of the day. You seem to have less willpower when you are tired or worn down. You can re-energize by taking adequate breaks during the day. As a back up to willpower, you need systems and processes to ensure you are doing everything right even when your willpower is down.

The authors also knocked down the notion of playing it safe and not going for the fences. Trying to play it safe does not yield the results you need to get to the next level. They referenced the “ Think Different ” Apple advertising campaign.

This section only had three chapters focusing on asking the right question, doing the right thing, and looking for the right answers. The authors stressed the importance of asking the right question. What is the question that will help you succeed? The authors introduced this question at the beginning of the book:

“What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” (Keller & Papasan, 2012, p. 106).

Keller and Papasan talked about breaking the complex into the simple. The eating of the elephant. They pointed out that asking this question would help to decide upon doing the right thing at the right time regardless of your area of life: work, health, personal life, finances, etc. The demonstrated how to tweak the question to hone in on the ONE Thing to do for a variety of different subjects and areas of life. When tweaking your questions, Keller and Papasan recommended getting as specific as possible. They also describe where to get answers. One of the places to get answers is through the experiences of others. They stressed the importance of reading. By reading, you can stand on the shoulders of others. I also think that reading is key. Not only do I regularly read books , but I also read what others are sharing on the Internet. I am grateful for those who work out loud and share what they know.

Extraordinary Results

This last section focused on important elements to include: purpose, priority, productivity, three commitments, the fours thieves, and the journey.

On a philosophical level, Keller and Papasan discussed the importance of having a purpose to what you do. What is the reason you do what you do? With a purpose, you can more easily establish your priorities. The authors provided an exercise that takes your someday goal and narrows it to the task that you should be working on right now. They showed how to connect the dominoes. They also provided some extra tips for succeeding a goal setting as well as accomplishing the goals.

Perhaps one of the useful chapters for me focused on productivity. “Productive people get more done, achieve better results, and earn far more in their hours than the rest. They do so because the devote maximum time being productive on their top priority, their ONE Thing” (Keller & Papasan, 2012, p. 158). In this chapter, the authors discussed time blocking; when to block it, how much to block, and how to protect it.

Keller and Papasan also addressed three commitments that you must make to achieve extraordinary results: focus on mastery, focus on purpose, and being accountable. It boils down to taking responsibility for your actions and striving for the best. They also stressed the importance of finding a coach to help you with you with gaps.

Finally, Keller and Papasan talked about creating an environment conducive to success. This means saying no when it does not align with your purpose and you ONE Thing. It also means taking care of your health so that you can have the willpower to succeed.

I thought this was an inspiring book. The ONE Thing has presented me with some ideas to leverage to make my life just a little bit better. If you feel you are frantically paddling and getting nowhere, I would then recommend this book.

Additional Reading

• Book Review: Get It Done: The 21-Day Mind Hack System to Double Your Productivity and Finish What You Start
• A Simple Tool That Can Give a Boost to Productivity
• #ATD2018: Getting Things Done: How You and Your Team Can Become More Productive and Valuable at Work
• Book Review: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
• Book Review: Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business
• Book Review: Tools of Titans-The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-class Performers
• Book Review: Clockwork: Design Your Business to Run Itself

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The ONE Thing

The surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results.

The One Thing explains the success habit to overcome the six lies that block our success, beat the seven thieves that steal time, and leverage the laws of purpose, priority, and productivity.

This book is FANTASTIC. It's elegantly written and punchy. I'm putting it at the top of my "reread every couple of months" list. Ignore it at your own peril.

Recommended to me by Will Brown on episode 30 of The Louis & Kyle Show .

If you chase two rabbits... you will not catch either one. - Russian Proverb

Chapter 1: The One Thing

• Keller Williams became much more successful when Gary Keller fired himself and hired 14 executives to oversee the major functions.
• His executives became dramatically more productive, when Gary only asked them to do one most important action item after each coaching meeting.
• To find that action item, Gary asked "the focusing question."
• "What's the ONE Thing you can do this week such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?"
• "Going small" is ignoring all the things you could do and doing what you should do."
• Not all things matter equally, so find and focus on the things that matter most.
• "Big success comes when we do a few things well.

Chapter 2: The Domino Effect

• "When one thing, the right thing, is set in motion, it can topple many things."
• "a single domino is capable of bringing down another domino that is actually 50% larger" (this is true for every domino in the progression)
• Life doesn't line up the domino's and say "start here"
• highly successful people line up their priorities anew everyday, find the "lead" domino, and whack away at it until it falls down
• "extraordinary success is sequential, not simultaneous." "do the right thing and then you do the next right thing."
• "Success is built sequentially. It's one thing at a time."

Chapter 3: Success Leaves Clues

• "No one succeeds alone, no one."
• Passion creates a virtuous cycle. You love doing it, so you get good at it. Doing well is rewarding, so you do it even more.
• "The ONE Thing shows up time and time again in the lives of the successful because it's a fundamental truth."
• "How do you make the best decisions possible, experience life at an extraordinary level, and never look back? Live the ONE Thing."

Part 1: The Lies

Chapter 4: everything matters equally.

• As adults, we have full autonomy over our choices. How we spend our time, what we work on, etc.
• Our lives are little more than the cumulative result of all of our choices.
• "when our lives are defined by our choices, the all-important question becomes, How do we make good ones?"
• "When everything feels urgent and important, everything seems equal"
• "Activity is often unrelated to productivity, and busyness rarely takes care of business"
• "Not everything matters equally, and success isn't a game won by whoever does the most"
• "The things which are most important don't always scream the loudest" - Bob Hawke
• Achievers "have an eye for the essential." They "pause just long enough to decide what matters and then allow what matters to drive their day"
• "Achievers do sooner what others plan to do later and defer"
• "Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority"
• "Instead of a to-do list, you need a success list--a list that is purposefully created around extraordinary results"
• "If a list isn't built around success, then that's not where it takes you"
• Pareto's Principle (80/20 rule) is "as real as the law of gravity...It's not just a theory--its a provable predictable certainty of nature"
• "Selected effort creates almost all of the rewards"
• "The majority of what you want will come from the minority of what you do"
• "A to-do list becomes a success list when you apply Pareto's Principle to it."
• "There will always be just a few things that matter more than the rest, and out of those, one will matter most"
• "Once you've figured out what actually matters, keep asking what matters most until there is only one thing left."
• "Whether you say "later" or "never," the point is to say "not now" to anything else you could do until your most important work is done"

Chapter 5: Multitasking

• "To do two things once is to do neither" -- Publilius Syrus
• Multitasking "is an effective way to get less done"
• People can do two things at once (walking and talking) but we can't focus on two things at once.
• "Figure out what matters most in the moment and give it your undivided attention"

Chapter 6: A Disciplined Life

• "Success is actually a short race--a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over"
• "we often say, "I just need more discipline." Actually, we need the habit of doing it. And we need just enough discipline to build the habit"
• "the foundation for achievement--regularly working at something until it regularly works for you"
• "those with the right habits seem to do better than others. They're doing the most important thing regularly and, as a result, everything else is easier"
• "Build one habit at a time. Success is sequential, not simultaneous."
• Some good habits I've developed that have made life easier (not drinking/smoking (no hangovers, more energy), running/exercise 5+days a week (more energy, better confidence, mental clarity), reading (endless stream of good ideas), journaling (developing gratitude & positivity), cooking (saving money, eating healthier), waking up early (getting important work done before being distracted by life).
• "The trick to success is to choose the right habit and bring just enough discipline to establish it. That's it."

Chapter 7: Willpower Is Always On Will-Call

• "Willpower has a limited battery life but can be renewed with some downtime."
• Do your most important work (your ONE Thing) when your willpower is the highest. For me, this means doing my most important work right around when I wake up.
• Willpower depletes throughout the day. Do your highest priority work first.

Chapter 8: A Balanced Life

• "balance is lived practically as a verb"
• "Purpose, meaning, significance--these are what make a successful life"
• Extraordinary results require focused attention and time.
• "Leaving some things undone is a necessary tradeoff for extraordinary results. But you can't leave everything undone."
• "The idea of counterbalancing is that you never go so far that you can't find your way back or stay so long that there is nothing waiting for you when you return.
• "Your work life is divided into two distinct areas--what matters most and everything else"

Chapter 9: Big Is Bad

• "We are kept from our goal, not by obstacles but by a clearer path to a lesser goal." - Robert Brault
• "if you fear big success, you'll either avoid it or sabotage your efforts to achieve it"
• "When we connect big with bad, we trigger shrinking thinking. Lowering our trajectory feels safe."
• "No one knows their ultimate ceiling for achievement, so worrying about it is a waste of time"
• "the only actions that become springboards to succeeding big are those informed by big thinking to begin with"
• "how big you think becomes the launching pad for how high you achieve"
• "how many times have you set out to do something that seemed like a real stretch at the time, only to discover it was much easier than you thought?" (podcast, half marathon)
• growth mindset
• "Achievement and abundance show up because they're the natural outcome of doing the right things with no limits attached."
• "Don't fear big. Fear mediocrity. Fear waste. Fear the lack of living to your fullest."
• "Only living big will let you experience your true life and work potential"
• "A good rule of thumb is to double down everywhere in your life. If your goal is ten, ask..."How can I reach 20?"
• "people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the only ones who do"
• "study people who have already achieved" what you want to achieve... "what consistently works for others will almost always work for us."

Part 2: The Truth

"Be careful how you interpret the world, it is like that" - Erich Heller

• "The key to success isn't in all the things we do but in the handful of things we do well"
• "If you can honestly say, "This is where I'm meant to be right now, doing exactly what I'm doing," then all the amazing possibilities for your life become possible."

Chapter 10: The Focusing Question

• "I tell you "put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket" - Andrew Carnegie
• "the quality of an answer is directly determined by the quality of the question"
• "Ask the most powerful question possible, and the answer can be life altering"
• The poem My Wage by J.B. Rittenhouse
• "That any wage I had asked of Life, Life would have willingly paid"
• "How we phrase the questions that we ask ourselves determines the answers that eventually become our life."
• "Anyone who dreams of an unconventional life eventually discovers there is no choice but to seek an uncommon approach to living it. The Focusing Question is that uncommon approach.
• "What is the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?" (big picture and right now).
• The Focusing Question is both "a map for the bigger picture and a compass for your smallest next move."
• The Focusing Question "ignores what is doable and drills down to what is necessary, to what matters. It leads you to the first domino."
• "To stay on track for the best possible day, month, year, or career, you must keep asking the Focusing Question. Ask it again and again, and it forces you to line up tasks in their levered order of importance."
• By doing this, "your actions become a natural progression of building one right thing on top of the previous right thing."
• "when you do this ONE Thing, everything else you do to accomplish your goal will be either doable with less effort or no longer even necessary. Most people struggle to comprehend how many things don't need to be done, if they would just start by doing the right thing."
• "find the first domino and focus on it exclusively until you knock it over"
• What's my ONE Thing right now? - "Use this when you first wake up and throughout the day.

Chapter 11: The Success Habit

• Add categories and time frames to the focusing question. (This week, today, this year)(family, work, health)
• It is critical to understand and believe in the focusing question. You have to have confidence that it will make a difference.
• Start each day with the focusing question.
• "Until my ONE Thing is done--everything else is a distraction"

Chapter 12: The Path to Great Answers

"People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and they habits decide their futures" - F.M. Alexander

• Great questions are big and specific
• Great answers live outside your comfort zone
• Find role models who have done similar to what you want to achieve and learn from them
• "The best goals explore what is possible"

Part 3: Extraordinary Results

• "Connecting purpose, priority, and productivity determines how high above the rest successful individuals and profitable businesses rise."

Chapter 13: Live With Purpose

• "our destinies are shaped by our decisions, our lives shaped by our choices"
• desire for money or things is an endless an unfulfilling pit
• continually searching for the next thing will not lead to lasting happiness
• "Happiness happens on the way to fulfillment"
• "five factors that contribute to our happiness: positive emotion and pleasure, achievement, relationships, engagement, and meaning.
• "financially wealthy people are those who have enough money coming in without having to work to finance their purpose in life"
• "To be financially wealthy, you must have a purpose for your life... without purpose, you'll never know when you have enough money, and you can never be financially wealthy."

Chapter 14: Live By Priority

• 'Priority' should be viewed as singular.
• Hyperbolic discounting: the further away a reward is, the smaller the short term motivation to achieve it
• Goal setting to the now: set a future goal and then methodically drill down to what needs to be done right now
• Someday goal->5 year goal->1 year goal->1 month goal->weekly goal->daily goal->right now
• Visualize process necessary in reaching goals.

Chapter 15: Live For Productivity

"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another" - Walter Elliot

• Time block your ONE Thing and then protect it with a vengeance
• "Make an appointment with yourself and then keep it"
• "If disproportionate results come from one activity, then you must give that one activity disproportionate time"
• a calendar records appointments but doesn't care who they are with
• "Great success comes when time is devoted everyday to becoming great"
• Time block these three things in order: 1- Your Time Off. 2- Your ONE Thing. 3- Your planning time.
• "the most successful people simply see themselves as working between vacations"
• "Resting is as important as working. There are few examples of successful people who violate this, but they are not our role models."
• "To experience extraordinary results, be a maker in the morning and a manager in the afternoon"
• "Block an hour each week to review you annual and monthly goals"
• "There is magic in knocking down your most important domino day after day"
• "If you erase, you must replace" --- if you change a time block, schedule the new time immediately
• "Until My ONE Thing Is Done--Everything Else Is A Distraction!"
• "Nothing and no one has permission to distract me from my ONE Thing"

Chapter 16: The Three Commitments

"Nobody who ever gave their best regretted it" - George Halas

• "First you must adopt the mindset of someone seeking mastery. Mastery is a commitment to becoming your best "
• "Second you must continually seek the very best way of doing things."
• Third "you must be willing to be held accountable to doing everything you can to achieve your ONE Thing"
• Mastery is "as critical as ever to achieving extraordinary results"
• "see mastery as a path you go down instead of a destination you arrive at"
• "mastery is a way of thinking, a way of acting, and a journey to experience"
• time block four hours a day for your ONE Thing
• "More than anything else, expertise tracks with hours invested"
• "The pursuit of mastery bears gifts...the path of mastery is not so different from one pursuit to the next."
• " the journey of the successful lifelong learner was never over "

From E to P (he calls this entrepreneurial to purposeful, I prefer to  think inefficient->effective)

• "when you're going about your ONE Thing, any ceiling of achievement must be challenged"
• "a different result requires doing something different."

Accountability

• I wrote about this here
• get an accountability partner or a coach->"give your partner license to lay out the honest truth"
• "individuals with written goals were 39.5% more likely to succeed... Individuals who wrote their goals and sent progress reports to friends were 76.7% more likely to achieve them."
• "you'd be hard pressed to find elite achievers who don't have coaches helping them in key areas of their life"

Chapter 17: The Four Thieves

Inability to Say "No"

• "Saying yes to your ONE Thing is your top priority... saying no to anything that keeps you from your time-block should become something you can accept"
• "A request must be connected to my ONE Thing for me to consider it."

Fear of Chaos

• "Focusing on ONE Thing has a guaranteed consequence: other things don't get done"
• This is okay

Poor Health Habits

• "Personal energy mismanagement is a silent thief of productivity"
• "High achievement and extraordinary results require big energy. The trick is learning how to get it and keep it."
• "Anyone you know who gets little sleep and appears to be doing great is either a freak of nature or hiding its effects from you. Either way, they aren't your role model."
• "If you can have a highly productive day until noon, the rest of the day falls easily into place"
• "Structuring the earliest hours of the day is the simplest way to extraordinary results"

Environment Doesn't Support Your Goals

• "Ultimately, being with success-minded people creates what researchers call a "positive spiral of success" where they lift you up and send you on your way."
• Block external inputs until later in the day

Chapter 18: The Journey

"When you lift the limits of your thinking, you expand the limits of your life. It's only when you can imagine a bigger life that you can ever hope to have one."

• "Go live a life worth living where, in the end, you'll be able to say, "I'm glad I did," not "I wish I had.""
• 5 regrets of the dying: "life your life to minimize the regrets you might have at the end"
• You are the first domino

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Book Summary The One Thing , by Gary Keller

In The One Thing , real estate entrepreneur Gary Keller argues that the key to extraordinary success is focusing daily on the “One Thing” that’s most important for achieving your goal, rather than scattering yourself in many directions. Keller and co-author Jay Papasan explain how to determine your goal or life purpose, then focus intensely on getting there, while avoiding pitfalls such as multitasking, relying on an unprioritized to-do list, thinking too small, misunderstanding willpower and discipline, and neglecting your personal life. When you know and focus exclusively on the most important thing every day, everything else falls into place. Extraordinary focus on One Thing brings extraordinary success.

The One Thing

Gary Keller

1-Page Summary 1-Page Book Summary of The One Thing

In The One Thing , real estate entrepreneur Gary Keller argues that the key to extraordinary success is focusing daily on the “One Thing” that will make the biggest difference in achieving your goal.

Keller, founder of the world’s largest real estate company Keller Williams, says that success comes from choosing and doing the right things sequentially, each connected to and building on the previous one, rather than doing a lot of disparate things, regardless of value, simultaneously. Extraordinary focus on One Thing each day is what leads to extraordinary success .

You start by thinking big—imagining extraordinary results—then narrowing your focus until you’re thinking small—that is, focusing on the most important thing you can do at the moment to help get you where you ultimately want to go. Focus on it exclusively, and when you complete it, move on to the next One Thing on your way to your goal.

The Domino Effect

When you prioritize so you’re focusing on the right thing at the moment, everything after that subsequently falls into place like a progression of dominoes .

Physicist Lorne Whitehead determined in 1983 that a single domino can bring down another domino that’s 50% bigger. Another physicist tested and confirmed this in 2001, using eight dominoes of plywood, each 50% larger than the one before. The first was two inches tall and the last one thirty-six inches tall.

When you pursue your goals by starting with the one, right thing, it leads to bigger things—you build energy in a geometric progression like Whitehead’s progressively larger dominoes. To keep doing the math:

• The tenth domino would be nearly as tall as NFL QB Payton Manning.
• The eighteenth would be comparable to the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
• The twenty-third would be taller than the Eiffel Tower.
• The thirty-first would surpass Mount Everest by 3,000 feet.
• The fifty-seventh would be comparable in height to the distance between earth and moon.

To achieve success, aim for the moon. Getting there is doable when you create a domino effect in your life.

Success Is Sequential

Exceptional success, like a domino fall, is sequential, not something you achieve by multitasking or doing a lot of things simultaneously. You line up your priorities and focus on the first domino until you topple it. You begin with a linear process that becomes geometric; you build momentum as you do the first right thing, followed by the next and the next.

A wealthy person doesn’t become wealthy in a day; a champion athlete doesn’t start winning on day one. Money, skills, expertise, and accomplishments are built over time. Success builds on success, sequentially, as you move from One Thing to another until you reach the highest level possible.

Success Myths

Despite our potential for huge success, most of us believe a number of myths we’ve been taught about it, which keep us from focusing on One Thing:

Myth 1) Everything is equally important and we must do it all. We’re flooded with new information and input constantly. Everything feels urgent and important, so we try to do everything, using an ever-increasing to-do list that gives every item equal weight. However, without prioritization, it’s merely a “survival” list. All things are not equally important. Research shows that a minority of our effort (20%) produces the majority (80%) of our results, which means focusing on the few, highest-impact things is the key to creating extraordinary results .

Myth 2) Multitasking gets more done . Multitasking is a myth—our brains can’t focus on more than one thing at a time. What looks like multitasking is actually task-switching as our brains go back and forth between tasks. Rather than increasing our efficiency, this process is a huge time-waster. Researchers estimate that employees are interrupted every eleven minutes and spend a third of their day recovering from interruptions. It also takes longer to do things. Depending on the complexity of the task, switching can add 25% to 100% more time to completing it. You won’t succeed in your work or life unless you figure out what matters most in the moment and give it your undivided attention.

Myth 3) Only people with superhuman discipline succeed . Most people have all the discipline they need to succeed. Success isn’t a result of ongoing discipline. It results from applying discipline long enough for a new habit to stick and become automatic. When you exercise discipline, you’re training yourself to act in a certain way. When you do it long enough—research shows it takes 66 days to establish a habit—the new behavior becomes routine. You become successful when you’ve strategically applied discipline to the right thing—establishing a powerful new habit.

Myth 4) Willpower is unlimited . Willpower is like the battery power of your phone. As you draw on the available power, the supply diminishes. You make difficult challenges harder when you don’t reserve enough willpower to help you with them. Things that sap willpower include: resisting temptation,...

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The One Thing Summary Chapter 1: The One Thing

In The One Thing , author and real estate entrepreneur Gary Keller argues that the key to extraordinary success is focusing daily on the “One Thing” that will make the biggest difference in achieving your goal.

Keller, founder of the world’s largest real estate company Keller Williams, acknowledges this is counterintuitive in our multitasking world. But he argues that success comes from doing the right things sequentially, each connected to and building on the previous one, rather than doing a lot of disparate things simultaneously. Extraordinary focus on One Thing each day is what leads to extraordinary success .

The One Thing tells you how to apply this simple but transformative principle to your work and in your personal life, where escalating demands and constant distractions work against focusing on anything for long.

You start by thinking big—imagining extraordinary results—then narrowing your focus until you’re thinking small—focusing on the most important thing you can do at the moment to get you where you ultimately want to go. Focus on the small One Thing exclusively, and when you complete it, move on to the next One Thing on your way to your goal.

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The One Thing Summary Chapter 2: The Domino Effect

When you prioritize so you’re focusing on the right thing at the moment, everything after that subsequently falls into place like a progression of dominoes . Each domino represents a small amount of energy and as your dominoes fall, the energy in the string builds so that your final results are astounding.

In 1983, physicist Lorne Whitehead determined that a single domino can bring down another domino that’s 50% bigger. Another physicist tested and confirmed this in 2001, using eight dominoes of plywood, each 50% larger than the one before. The first was two inches tall and the last one thirty-six inches tall.

**When you attack your goals by starting...

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The One Thing Summary Chapter 3: Success Stories

Focusing on One Thing instead of many things brings success—examples proving this are abundant. The One Thing spurring success can be a product, person, passion, or life purpose.

One Product

Hugely successful companies focus on one product or service:

• Colonel Sanders concentrated on one product, fried chicken made with a secret recipe, to create KFC.
• The Coors Company grew 1,500% from 1947-67 with a single beer made at one brewery.
• Starbucks focused on One Thing—coffee.
• Google focused exclusively on search, which allowed the company to make a fortune selling advertising.

Successful businesses continually ask themselves, “What’s our One Thing?” because it has to evolve in response to competition, technology, and consumer demand.

Apple focused on one exceptional product at a time, moving from the Mac, iMac, iTunes, and iPod, to the iPhone and then iPad. If your business doesn’t know what its One Thing is, then its One Thing or focus should be determining what that is.

No one succeeds totally alone. Many of those who’ve achieved exceptional success can cite one person who made the difference by pointing them in the right direction—for...

Shortform Exercise: The ‘One Thing’ in Your Life

Focusing on One Thing brings success. The One Thing spurring success can be a product, person, passion, or life purpose. To discover the impact of the One Thing principle in your life, consider the following:

Does your company know its One Thing—the distinctive product or service that defines it? What is your company’s One Thing? How has it evolved over time and where is it headed?

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The One Thing Summary Part 1 | Chapter 4: Myth 1—Everything is Equally Important

We act on what we believe. Unfortunately, a lot of what we believe—what we accept as objectively true or as common sense—is nonsense. For instance, we believe that:

• You can cook a live frog without it jumping out of the pot by turning up the heat slowly.
• A fish rots from the head down.
• You should bet on the jockey, not the horse.

Most of us believe similar myths about success, which keep us from focusing on One Thing.

The first myth standing in the way of success is that everything is important. However, all things are not equally important—figuring out and focusing on the most important things is the key to success.

We’re flooded with new information and input constantly—from personal interactions, family demands, directives from the boss, emails, requests from colleagues, and constant “alerts” from our cell phones. Everything feels urgent and important, so we try to do everything. However, despite being busy, we don’t accomplish much. Being busy isn’t the same as being productive or successful.

In fact, no one succeeds by being the person who does the most .

To-Do Lists

The time-management and “success industry” advocates tell us to-do...

The One Thing Summary Chapter 5: Myth 2—Multitasking

A second myth that stands in the way of success is the belief that you can get more done by multitasking. You can’t .

With impossibly long to-do lists, many people believe multitasking is the way to get everything done. People think it’s something they should learn and practice in the name of efficiency. Web pages and blogs offer instructions. Some employers list multitasking as an essential skill for prospective hires.

However, 2009 research by Clifford Nass of Stanford University showed it doesn’t work. While multitaskers think they’re succeeding, they’re actually performing poorly . Nass found that multitaskers “were lousy at everything.”

As speaker and author Steve Uzzell noted, “Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.”

Origins of Multitasking

Multitasking might be a holdover from humans’ earliest days, when they had to watch their surroundings for predators while doing other things like picking berries. We seem to be wired to try to do more than one thing at a time. Because we feel so pressed for time, multitasking has become a hallmark of the modern human.

**The term multitasking entered the lexicon in the 1960s,...

Shortform Exercise: One Thing at a TIme

Studies show that when we try to multitask, we end up doing multiple things badly. In addition, trying to do two things at once wastes time because the brain has to switch back and forth between the tasks and reorient itself each time.

Think about how your day went yesterday. How many times did you attempt to multitask and what tasks were involved?

The One Thing Summary Chapter 6: Myth 3—A Disciplined Life

People often think that only those with superhuman discipline achieve success. However, this is another myth. Almost everyone has sufficient discipline to achieve success—they just need to apply it more strategically.

Success isn’t a result of ongoing discipline. It results from applying discipline long enough for a new habit to stick and become automatic . When you exercise discipline, you’re training yourself to act in a certain way. When you do it long enough, the new behavior becomes routine and no longer requires discipline.

You become successful because you’ve strategically applied discipline to the right thing—establishing a powerful new habit.

Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps is an example of...

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The One Thing Summary Chapter 7: Myth 4—Just Use Your Willpower

We’ve all heard the adage, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” and taken it to mean that with enough determination you’ll accomplish your goals. Just summon up your willpower and you can do anything.

But you set yourself up for failure if you don’t understand how willpower works and manage it properly . When you’re struggling to accomplish something and can’t seem to muster the willpower, you may feel you lack character or fortitude, so you try harder. But the problem isn’t your determination. The truth is that willpower isn’t always there when you need it. It’s not on call.

Yet willpower is critical to success.

In the sixties and seventies, researchers at Stanford University did a famous study of willpower with 500 toddlers called the Marshmallow Test. Kids were offered their choice of one of three treats (one was a marshmallow) but told if they waited fifteen minutes, they’d get a second treat. Only three in ten succeeded in waiting the full fifteen minutes.

Decades later, researchers tracked down the original subjects and found that ”high delayers” had more successful lives—for instance, higher test scores and academic achievements, better stress management, and...

Shortform Exercise: Managing Your Willpower

Willpower is like the battery power of your phone. As you draw on the available power, the supply diminishes. You make difficult challenges harder when you don’t reserve enough willpower to help you with them.

Think of a time when you wanted to accomplish something (for instance, to complete a task) but you couldn’t summon the willpower to make it happen. What was the situation and what time of day did it occur?

The One Thing Summary Chapter 8: Myth 5—Strive for Balanced Life

A balanced life in which no area of life—for instance, work, family, or health—is neglected is a myth. Trying to maintain balance will keep you from achieving extraordinary success because success requires allowing some things to remain unaddressed, at least temporarily, so you can focus on what’s most important.

The goal of achieving balance in our lives is relatively recent . For most of human history, work and life were synonymous. You had to work all the time, hunting or raising crops and livestock, in order to live. With the rise of the industrial age, people began working for others, who then controlled much of their time. Unions and labor laws sought to mitigate work demands on time.

The work-life balance concept emerged in the 1980s, when a critical mass of women entered the workforce and had to meet the demands of both work and home life. In the 1990s, balance became important for men too. The rise of technology that erased work-life boundaries added to the craving for balance.

Counterbalancing

The problem is that balancing all areas of your life at once keeps you from making an extraordinary commitment to anything . Yet the extremes are where...

The One Thing Summary Chapter 9: Myth 6—Don’t Think Too Big

Many people fear “going big” or pursuing exceptional achievement in their professional lives because it sounds difficult or like “pie in the sky.” Lowering your sights seems more prudent and realistic. But thinking big is essential to extraordinary results. (This is different from having a small focus—that is, narrowing your focus to a single priority or most important step toward your big goal. You need to think big and focus small.)

Since what you think determines what you do, how big you think determines your level of success . Big success has to start with big thinking. For example, Sabeer Bhatia, the man who developed Hotmail and eventually sold it to Microsoft for $400 million, arrived in Silicon Valley as an immigrant with only $250 and a big idea. He believed he could build a major tech company that stood out from any other in record time—and he did.

Other examples of thinking—and achieving—big are:

• Arthur Guinness—when he set up his first brewery, he signed a 9,000-year lease.
• J.K. Rowling imagined a seven-book series about Hogwarts, before writing the first chapter of her first Harry Potter book.
• Sam Walton believed Walmart would be so successful...

The One Thing Summary Part 2 | Chapters 10-12: The Focusing Question

We overanalyze and overplan our careers and lives. We accept feeling overstressed, while following conventional advice for success, including acting and dressing for success, meditating for inspiration, and getting to work before anyone else so we can do more. However, the key to success isn’t doing more than anyone else, but focusing on a few, right things and doing them well .

Andrew Carnegie, whose steel company was the largest enterprise in the world, gave this advice to college students in 1885: “Concentrate your energy, thought, and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged.”

He had observed that the companies that fail are the ones that spread themselves too thin by going in too many directions. “Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket,” he said. “It’s easy to watch and carry the one basket. It is trying to carry too many baskets that breaks the most eggs in this country.”

The way you determine which basket to pick is by asking the Focusing Question: “What’s the one thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

The focusing question is a simple formula for getting answers that lead...

Shortform Exercise: Practice the Focusing Question

The focusing question, intended to help you figure out what your immediate priority should be, is: “What’s the One Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” You can apply it to your work or any aspect of your life. For practice, try applying it to a simple goal, such as healthy eating.

Start by considering the question, “What’s the One Thing I can do to ensure that I eat healthy today such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” What are some possible answers?

The One Thing Summary Part 3 | Chapters 13-15: Implementing the One Thing

There are three components to implementing your One Thing and achieving exceptional results: purpose, priority, and productivity. Your big One Thing is your purpose , and your small One Thing is what you do now—your priority —to achieve it.

Purpose, priority, and productivity are like three parts of an iceberg. Productivity is the tip or part you see (just one-ninth of the iceberg). Priority is directly under the surface and purpose is deeper. Your purpose determines your priority, and both purpose and priority drive productivity.

How well you connect your purpose, priority, and productivity determines your personal level of success; the same formula applies to business success as well. The formula for an exceptional life is to live with purpose, live by priority, and live for productivity.

1) Live with Purpose

Your purpose is the one thing you want your life to be about more than any other .

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens illustrates how purpose sets or changes the course of your life. At first, Scrooge’s purpose is to have money. His priority is amassing as much as he can. With maximum productivity, he accomplishes his goal/purpose....

Shortform Exercise: Block Your Time

The key to productivity is scheduling or blocking time on your calendar—at least four hours daily—to focus on your priority and resisting distractions and interruptions.

How much uninterrupted time do you consistently spend each day on your top priority at work or in your personal life, so that you are making measurable progress each day and week toward your big goal?

The One Thing Summary Chapter 16: Make the Most of Your Time Block

Achieving exceptional results from time blocking requires exceptional effort in three areas: 1) committing yourself to mastery, 2) determining the best way to do something, and 3) holding yourself accountable.

1) Commit Yourself to Mastery

Mastery is a process rather than an end result. It’s based on the desire to become the best you can be at doing your most important thing and an understanding that there’s always more to learn. You’ve mastered tasks accomplished in the past, but you’re an apprentice when it comes to future tasks. There’s always a new level of expertise to reach.

Mastery of the right thing topples your first domino and “makes everything else easier or no longer necessary.”

Besides requiring a mindset of continual learning, achieving mastery or expertise requires a significant investment of time. The time you spend is ultimately more important than talent.

Psychologist K. Anders Ericsson debunked the idea that top performers excel because they’re gifted. He found that the key to reaching elite levels was intense and “deliberate” practice over many years—for instance, top violinists accumulated over 10,000 hours of practice by age 20. If you put in 250...

The One Thing Summary Chapter 17: Four Productivity Hurdles

Despite your best intentions, several tendencies can block your productivity.

1) An Inability to Say No

Saying yes to (or focusing on) your One Thing is your priority. This means you have to protect what you’ve said yes to by saying no to everything else that impinges on your time block . To put it another way, one yes must be defended over time by a thousand nos.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he proceeded over the next two years to reduce the company’s products from 350 to ten. He understood that the more things you do (say yes to), the less successful you are at any of them.

It’s human nature to want to be helpful when someone asks you for something. Saying no in order to focus on your own goals can seem selfish. But you can do it in a respectful and even helpful way by:

• Suggesting someone else who might say yes
• Suggesting another approach or resource that doesn’t require your help—for instance, directing the person to instructions, FAQs, or helpdesk.

Your talent, abilities, and time are limited. Your life must be about what you say yes to—rather than what you ought to have said no to.

2) Fear of Chaos

When you focus on your One...

Shortform Exercise: Learn to Say No

Focusing on your One Thing is your priority. This means you have to protect your priority by saying no to everything else that impinges on your time block.

Think about the past few days at work. How much time did you spend responding to others’ requests? What were some of the requests you received?

The One Thing Summary Chapter 18: Live Large

When you dream big and then make that dream your goal, you’ll end up living large. To see what this could look like, write down your income and multiply it by two, five, ten, or some other number. Then write down the new number.

Ask yourself whether what you’re doing now will get you this number in the next five years. If your current actions will get you there, continue doubling the number until they won’t.

If you change your actions to match the ultimate number—your big goal—you’ll be living large.

You can apply this process to anything that matters:...

Table of Contents

The One Thing Summary and Review | Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

Book summary of the one thing: the surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results.

Life gets busy. Has The ONE Thing been on your reading list? Learn the key insights now.

We’re scratching the surface here. If you don’t already have Gary Keller and Jay Papasan’s popular book on business, productivity, personal development & self-help, order it here or get the audiobook for free on Amazon to learn the juicy details.

Introduction

The ONE Thing is a productivity and personal development book written by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. It is focused on the idea that to achieve success in any area of life, it is necessary to identify and focus on the one most important task or goal at a time. The book argues that this focus on a single “one thing” allows you to minimize distractions and achieve greater results in less time.

The book offers a number of strategies and techniques for identifying and prioritizing the “one thing” in your life, including setting clear goals, creating an action plan, and using techniques such as the “Four Disciplines of Execution” and the “Focusing Question.” It also discusses the importance of balance and the role of positive habits and mindset in achieving success.

The ONE Thing is intended to help readers identify and pursue their most important priorities, and to achieve greater success and fulfillment in their personal and professional lives.

Imagine for a moment that you could start getting more done this month than you did last year. How would your life look? Or your business? 

The premise behind The One Thing sounds simple enough, do one thing well, and you’ll succeed. But how do you discover the one thing to focus on, and how can you get anything else done? Our quick StoryShots will break down the top tips from The One Thing so you can start doing more in less time.  

About Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

Gary Keller, the real estate mogul, teamed up with writer Jay Papasan to write the book The One Thing. Gary Keller is known for starting the real estate company Keller-Williams. However, his passion for teaching and motivating has led him into authorship. 

Gary Keller has written four books, including The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, The Millionaire Real Estate Investor, Shift, and The One Thing. All four books have become bestsellers. For his book, The One Thing, Keller partnered with Papasan, who was a marketing editor and writer for Keller-Williams. 

Jay Papasan is also the executive editor at Keller Williams Realty, a real estate company founded by Gary Keller. In this role, he has worked on a number of other books and resources related to real estate and business, including The Millionaire Real Estate Agent and The Millionaire Real Estate Investor. Before his career in publishing and real estate, Papasan worked as a journalist and editor, including roles at The Wall Street Journal and Fast Company. He is based in Austin, Texas.

StoryShot #1: Keep In Mind the Domino Effect

In The One Thing, Gary Keller tells a few stories at the beginning of the book showing the power of a tiny domino. Incredibly, one small domino can knock over so many others when you set them up the right way.

Sometimes all it takes is one slight movement or action to set into motion many more steps that can become more powerful over time. One small domino had enough power to knock over nearly five million more dominos. In another example, they shared that one domino can knock over another one that is as large as 50% more significant than the previous one. 

In their story, a physicist was able to knock over eight dominos that progressively got larger. The first and smallest domino was only two inches tall. The final domino was almost three feet tall and easily toppled by the previous seven dominos. 

If you kept going with this example, the 57th one would almost reach the moon. You might not need to knock over dominos the size of the Eiffel Tower. But if your next project feels like it could stretch halfway to the moon, your challenge is to determine your first domino. 

Take the time to determine your first domino; this is your one thing. The first step you must focus on will allow you to complete your project and topple over your final domino. 

StoryShot #2: Look at the 80/20 Principle

Everyone knows the story of Pareto and his principle that a few people owned the majority of the land in Italy. This principle has proven true in many other areas and avenues of life. Joseph Juran coined the phrase about Pareto’s Principle that there are the “vital few and trivial many.”

The problem is that we’re trying to focus on the trivial many. Too many people are trying to run a business, work at their day job, and juggle family responsibilities. The list seems to go on and on. 

If we were to identify the vital few and focus all our intention there, we’d see more progress toward our goals than ever before. The key here is to take the time to step back and assess the small inputs with the most significant outputs. 

If you’re in real estate like Keller, you might want to take some time to check where most of your clients come from. Do they come from networking events, or did they find you on social media?

Once you know this information, you can feel better stopping the activities that aren’t bringing in most of your clients. And focus all your efforts on the one avenue bringing in new home buyers or sellers. 

StoryShot #3: Always Go Back to the Main Question

If you look at certain successful people, you’ll likely see they were great at one skill. For example, Tiger Woods didn’t try to be a star in baseball, basketball, and golf. Instead, he focused on his one sport and excelled at golf far beyond anyone else could dream of accomplishing. 

The same can be said for Michael Phelps, Bill Gates, and Starbucks. What do you want to be known for? Get so great at it that your name or brand is synonymous with your one trait. 

The entire premise behind this book is to ask yourself this one question:  

What is the one thing you can do right now that will make everything else easier or unnecessary? 

An exciting aspect of this book is that you don’t need to choose one area of your life and focus solely on it. Instead, ask this question for each area of your life. 

First, in your business, you will want to sit down and ask yourself what one area or project will move the needle forward the most. Do you need to work on your marketing campaigns or your capital fundraising?

But don’t try to do both at once. You’ll end up without any success or only halfway accomplishing your goals. 

Instead, if you choose marketing, then narrow it down again. What is one avenue of your marketing campaign that you need to focus on such that everything else will become easier or unnecessary? For example, if you took the time to focus on your SEO, could you eliminate the need to post on social media daily? 

Every day you need to decide your top priority in your business and focus on that one thing. Over time, you’ll find that you can accomplish more in less time than if you tried to do it all at once. 

For others, you’re not trying to grow a business. Instead, you’re trying to excel at your job and earn a promotion or raise.

Stop wondering why you haven’t gotten your big raise and recognition. Start spending some time deciding the one new skill you can tackle to ensure you’ll get that promotion next time. 

What skill can you learn that will make the rest of your job easier or unnecessary? Or you might ask what extra project you can do that will make you reach your goals or help your team get them? 

When you ask the right question, you’ll know where to focus. And you’ll have the guidance you need to excel in your career and get that raise and promotion you deserve.

Family or Personal Life

Alternatively, this focusing question doesn’t have to be exclusive to your career or business. You can also apply this concept to your family or personal life. What is one activity you can do that will make your family life more manageable? 

What if you had groceries delivered or signed up for a meal delivery service? Would that make dinner so much easier so that you can then dedicate evenings to family time? How could this help you build relationships with those most important to you? 

What can you focus on to help your child excel at their school work? Or what is one action you can take to help your aging parent stay in their home? As you can see, the focusing question applies to all areas of your life and can help you gain clarity in each one. 

If you’re staring down mountains of credit card debt or trying to save up for retirement, you might think you’ll never reach the goal line. However, with the focusing question, you don’t have to tackle the entire mountain of credit in one step. 

Instead, you want to ask yourself, what is one thing you can do today to improve your financial life? Maybe it means making a budget for the first time or cutting up the cards, so you aren’t tempted to keep using them once you start making payments. Focus on this one endeavor, and you’ll soon find yourself celebrating being debt-free. 

Physical Health

Lastly, look at your physical health. What is the one activity you can do today to improve your health? Have you always bounced from one yo-yo diet to another?

If so, then maybe you don’t need another diet plan. Perhaps you can start walking around the neighborhood or joining a yoga studio. These activities can not only help you with your physical health but your mental health as well. 

Find something to help you reach your health goals and focus there. Finally, you’ll be able to keep up with your kids at the park or beach and feel good about yourself.   

StoryShot #4: Choose Habits Over Willpower

Too many people rely on willpower to reach their goals. The problem is we all have limited willpower available to us. If you use up all your resolve in the morning to get up early to hit the gym, you might not have enough later to refuse that last donut at the end of the day. 

However, when you build up a habit of going to the gym over time, you won’t think about it as much, and it won’t take as much willpower to get there each morning.

The trick is that you need to be willing to take the time to discipline yourself in the beginning to make going to the gym a habit. It will take time, but it’s worth it in the long run. 

The key is to consider building your habit as several short races instead of a marathon. If you can discipline yourself to win the short races enough, you’ll be able to build that habit up.

Habits will help you reach your goals over time. Stop relying on willpower. 

StoryShot #5: Use Productivity Methods to Protect Your One Thing

Once you’ve determined your one thing, you’re only halfway to completing your goals. The second half to implementing and reaching those goals is to use a productivity method to help you reach those goals. Choose what works for you and see how you can accomplish much more when you focus.  

Time Blocking

The first tool you can use to reach your goals is time blocking. Time blocking is an excellent method to focus for a short time. The length of this amount of time can vary from person to person, depending on your current schedule and personality.

Some people will find that they can block off three hours every morning. Others might find their mind wandering after the first hour and wonder how they will complete the entire block. If this is you, choose to work in shorter sprints, such as using the Pomodoro method.

Regardless of how long your time block is, your central concept here is to know what you’re working on that will get you one step closer to your goals. 

Prioritization Matrix

Another great tool as you work towards your goals is to use the prioritization matrix . As you work towards figuring out what your one main focus is, you’re likely to have many activities and projects come up. Your challenge is to ensure you stay focused on the most critical outcome that will move the needle toward your goals.

Using a prioritization matrix helps show you what projects should take precedence. Once you set up your four quadrants, place each goal or project in the correct area. Look at the quadrant in the top right corner and choose one goal that is important but not urgent. 

Once you’ve chosen your priority, you’ll know where to focus first. Then you can come back to your matrix and determine the next most important step. Keep doing this until you’ve reached your goal.  

Avoid Multitasking

Finally, one productivity tip worth remembering is that the ability to multitask is a myth. Don’t keep telling yourself that you’re getting more done by multitasking. The truth is that you’re only getting them halfway done and taking longer than you realize. 

Remember, the central tenet of this book is to focus on your top priority with laser-guided intention. So stop fooling yourself by thinking you’re getting more done when multitasking because you’re not.

You’re costing yourself precious time and attention. Spend that time reaching your goals.

StoryShot #6: When You Go Big, You Need to Stay Small

We’ve all heard the saying, “Go big or go home.” However, when reaching your goals, you’re better served to stay small. Again, focus on the most crucial assignment that will move the needle forward first. 

Unfortunately, we live in a distracted world with information and ideas coming to use every second of the day. From the time we wake up, we’re checking our phones and checking in with people worldwide. This can be great, but it can also deter us from focusing our attention on our priorities. 

When you start your day, learn to stay focused on your intentions. If you find yourself still getting distracted, go back to the focusing question. Let this question guide you in all your decisions. 

For example, let’s say your boss comes to you with a great idea. You know it’s a great idea, but it will detract you from your goals. Discuss with your boss if that new idea will move the company forward in reaching your objectives and if not, stay focused on the first concern.  

StoryShot #7: Learn to Say No

As you learn to stay small, you’ll also need to learn to say no. It will be hard at first, especially when a new idea comes up, that seems more fun than the trenches you’re currently in.

But if you keep the focusing question in mind, you’ll learn to get better at saying no. This will help you to stay focused. 

When you say yes to something, you say no to something else. If you’re still trying to do all the things, then you’ve missed the point of the book. Go back to the beginning and reevaluate what your purpose is and where your goals are so you can determine your top priority.  

StoryShot #8: Choose Balance and Counterbalance

We all want to have balance in our lives between our work and personal lives. But living in the middle means you’ll live a mediocre life. 

Instead of constantly trying to find balance in every area, learn to use counterbalance. There will be times and seasons when you need to give your work all you’ve got. But then counterbalance that by planning a vacation once you’ve hit your goal. 

As mentioned, once you determine your priorities, you will have to say no to other obligations. Don’t stay out of balance for too long, leading to burnout. Instead, be willing to live in the extreme for a short time to reach your goal and then reassess and counterbalance.  

StoryShot #9: Live With Purpose

One of the biggest life lessons you should take from this book is not to try to get more done. But rather to find what you want to be known for and live with intention. When you focus on your purpose in life, you’ll find the actions you complete have more meaning. 

Finding your purpose gives your life the foundation you need to be able to pick the one thing that will allow you to live on purpose and with intention. You’ll soon see your productivity soar when you have a clear drive to motivate you each morning.

StoryShot #10: Stay Accountable

The last key takeaway from the book, The One Thing, is to stay accountable to your goals. You can do this in a variety of ways.

Some people are motivated by external forces , while others prefer to stay internal. You must figure out what motivates you to reach your goals. 

For example, some find they’re motivated when others know their goals. If this is you, reach out and ask someone to be your accountability partner. For others, you might work on a team or have a family that can cheer you on toward success.

Find what motivates you and choose accountability over victimhood. You aren’t a victim of your circumstances or environment. You must stay focused on your goals and accountable for reaching them no matter what.  

Final Summary and Review

In their book, The One Thing, authors Gary Keller and Jay Papasan outline many great stories and illustrations of why we all need to stay focused. Many distractions will come along. You’ll need to stay focused on finding the one thing that will make everything else easier and unnecessary.

When you do this, you’ll experience the fantastic success that you never before thought possible. This book shows how using laser focus and intensity can move you forward toward your goals faster than trying to do too much.

Take the time to determine where you should focus so you can stop juggling it all and prioritize your one thing.  

To sum up our top lessons on life from The One Thing book: 

• Keep the domino effect in mind
• Look at the 80/20 principle
• Always go back to the main question: “What’s the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
• Choose habits over willpower
• Use productivity methods to protect your one thing
• When you go big, you need to stay small
• Learn to stay no
• Choose balance and counterbalance
• Live with purpose
• Stay accountable

We rate this book 4.2/5.

PDF, Free Audiobook, Infographic, and Animated Book Summary of The One Thing

This was the tip of the iceberg. To dive into the details and support Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, order it here or get the audiobook for free .

Did you like what you learned here? Share to show you care and let us know by contacting our support.

New to StoryShots? Get the PDF, audiobook and animated versions of this summary of The One Thing and hundreds of other bestselling nonfiction books in our free top-ranking app . It’s been featured by Apple, The Guardian, The UN, and Google as one of the world’s best reading and learning apps.

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• First Things First by Stephen Covey
• Getting Things Done by David Allen
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Home » Book Review: ‘The One Thing’ by Marci Lyn Curtis

Book Review: ‘The One Thing’ by Marci Lyn Curtis

I liked “The One Thing” because it was a reasonably fast paced read, but I didn’t love it. It’s not even close to being one of my personal favorite contemporary romance books that I’ve read so far this year, but I still think it was a decent book as a whole. Most of my issues came with one of the main aspects of the plot, which I don’t want to completely spoil. However, this is a sweet book filled with a lot of heart and extremely likable characters. I have a feeling that this is a story many people will connect with right away.

Maggie Sanders lost her ability to see six months ago due to a nasty illness. Her life has totally changed since then. She no longer can play soccer, a sport that she loved, and she’s also lost all of her friends. She’s spent the majority of her time listening to her new favorite band. A strange thing happens to Maggie when she meets a ten-year-old boy named Ben who she can actually see and she can also see things around him. She strikes up a genuine friendship with Ben and then happens to discover that his older brother is the lead singer of her favorite band. What follows is an adventure as Maggie discovers the one thing that is her “thing.” This is something that Ben brings up to her and he means the one thing that you love and that makes you happier than anything else. This is an interesting concept that comes up repeatedly in the book.

Maggie is the highlight of the book for me. She’s filled with a hilarious amount of sass and sarcasm. She’s just a likable narrator and she’ll have you laughing out loud more than once while you read this story. I also really loved Ben, the ten-year-old that Maggie can see. This kid is seriously mature for his age and I love all the random and awesome topics that he brings up to Maggie. It’s hard to describe it here, but take my word for it that there are plenty of humorous moments from him. To balance the humor out, of course there are more than your fair share of sad and heartbreaking moments as well.

The romance in the book was something that I had some trouble with. As already said, Maggie was obsessed with this band and she was taken by surprised when she learned that Ben’s older brother Mason was the lead singer.  She develops a relatable and sweet crush on Mason as she learns more about him as an actual person and not just the lead singer of this band she loves. I really wanted to see more of a relationship between the two instead of just a few scenes. There wasn’t much of a build-up considering that they really didn’t talk that much.

I’m not going to launch into serious details, but my main drawback to the book was the reason behind why Maggie can see Ben. I just feel like it could have been handled in a more realistic way. I mean, obviously every scenario involving a blind person temporarily gaining sight back is going to involve fiction, but I just had a hard time understanding it and felt like there should have been more to it then how it was left in the end. Anyway, this is still a book filled with beautiful and memorable characters with a fairly unique story that young adult contemporary fans will likely love.

Rating: 7/10

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Rachel Geiger

Rachel is a 19-year-old college student who hopes to become a 7th grade English teacher while also publishing books on the side. She’s had a passion for books since she was barely old enough to walk. (okay, slight exaggeration but you get the idea) Some of her favorite books are Farewell To Arms, To Kill A Mockingbird, Divergent, Matilda, and The Great Gatsby. Aside from books, her other loves include: Bruce Springsteen, Gilmore Girls, Candy Crush, Prince, One Direction, and Tupac. You can contact her at [email protected]

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THE SURPRISINGLY SIMPLE TRUTH BEHIND EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS

You Want Less.   You want fewer distractions and less on your plate. The daily barrage of e-mails, texts, tweets, messages, and meetings distract you and stress you out. The simultaneous demands of work and family are taking a toll. And what’s the cost? Second-rate work, missed deadlines, smaller paychecks, fewer promotions–and lots of stress.

And You Want More.   You want more productivity from your work. More income for a better lifestyle. You want more satisfaction from life, and more time for yourself, your family, and your friends.

Now you can have both – less and more.

In The ONE Thing , you’ll learn how to:

Cut through the clutter Achieve better results in less time Dial down the stress Overcome that overwhelmed feeling Revive your energy Stay on track

The ONE Thing delivers extraordinary results in every area of your life—work, personal, family, and spiritual.

What’s your ONE Thing?

Purchase Your Copy of The ONE Thing

Outside the United States? Click here for international editions.

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

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LEARN. LISTEN. INVEST.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Gary Keller

Gary Keller is executive chairman of both kwx, a holding company that represents the collection of all Keller Williams affiliates and subsidiaries, and of Keller Williams Realty, Inc. Several of his books have been bestsellers, and held positions on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal lists. Collectively his titles have sold more than 5.4 million copies worldwide.

Jay Papasan

Before Jay Papasan co-authored the bestselling Millionaire Real Estate series with Gary Keller, he worked as an editor at Harper Collins Publishers. There he worked on such best-selling books as Body-for-Life by Bill Phillips and Go for the Goal by Mia Hamm. Jay is a keynote speaker. Jay also co-owns a successful real estate team affiliated with Keller Williams Realty with his wife Wendy in Austin, TX.

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THE ONE THING

The surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results.

by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2013

Encouraging bones of advice worth gnawing on, but absent substantial meat to sink your teeth into.

The founder of Keller Williams Realty outlines approach patterns for achieving great results in your work life.

Keller opens with a scene from City Slickers , in which Billy Crystal turns to Jack Palance and asks him to divulge the “one thing” that is the secret to life: “ ‘But what’s the ‘one thing?’ ‘That’s what you got to figure out.’ ” This is an appropriate opening, as Keller, with the assistance of Keller Williams vice president of publishing Papasan, also leads readers up to the edge, then abjures specifics. Not that there aren’t scads of sound, if generalized, opinions about getting something done well—e.g., narrow your concentration, focus, get to the point, get to the heart: “If today your company doesn’t know what its ONE Thing is, then the company’s ONE Thing is to find out.” Success is geometric, not linear. You must embrace chaos, find a supportive environment, block out your time, be committed, accept responsibility and have no regrets—some failure is a given. Pay attention to scale; both the big picture and the small focus are important. Perhaps the best piece of advice is to find a mentor: “No one succeeds alone. No one.” Yet the nub is elusive; “here’s how you get to the answer” is in short supply. So much is circular (“the only actions that become springboards to succeeding big are those informed by big thinking to begin with”), tautological or disconnected: “When you make faster decisions, you’ll often be the one who makes the first decisions and winds up with the best choices.”

Pub Date: April 1, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-885167-77-4

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Bard Press

Review Posted Online: March 15, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013

BUSINESS | LEADERSHIP, MANAGEMENT & COMMUNICATION | GENERAL BUSINESS

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THINKING, FAST AND SLOW

by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...

A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.

The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011

BUSINESS | LEADERSHIP, MANAGEMENT & COMMUNICATION | PSYCHOLOGY

More by Daniel Kahneman

BOOK REVIEW

by Daniel Kahneman & Olivier Sibony & Cass R. Sunstein

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IN THE NEWS

THE CULTURE MAP

Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business.

by Erin Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 2014

These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.

“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.

Pub Date: May 27, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1

Page Count: 288

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014

BUSINESS | PSYCHOLOGY

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Sam Thomas Davies

The ONE Thing by Gary Keller

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The Book in Three Sentences

The ONE Thing is the best approach to getting what you want.

• Success is a result of narrowing your concentration to one thing.
• Success is built sequentially, one thing at a time.

The Five Big Ideas

• Not everything matters equally.

Multitasking is a lie.

• Discipline is a result of habit.
• Willpower is a finite resource.
• Big is bad.

Want a Free Copy of My Summary?

The one thing summary, chapter 1: the one thing.

Where Keller has had huge success, he had narrowed his concentration to one thing, and where his success varied, his focus had too.

When you want the absolute best chance to succeed at anything you want, your approach should always be the same. Go small.

It’s realizing that extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus.

You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects.

Chapter 2:  The Domino Effect

Getting extraordinary results is all about creating a domino effect in your life.

The key is over time. Success is built sequentially. It’s one thing at a time.

Chapter 3: Success Leaves Clues

No one is self-made. And no one succeeds alone. No one.

The ONE Thing shows up time and again in the lives of the successful because it’s a fundamental truth.

The ONE Thing sits at the heart of success and is the starting point for achieving extraordinary results.

The Six Lies Between You and Success     

• Everything Matters Equally
• Multitasking
• A Disciplined Life
• Willpower Is Always on Will-Call
• A Balanced Life

Chapter 4: Everything Matters Equally

When everything feels urgent and important, everything seems equal. We become active and busy, but this doesn’t actually move us any closer to success. Activity is often unrelated to productivity, and busyness rarely takes care of business.

“The things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest.” — Bob Hawke

Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority.

Most to-do lists are survival lists—getting you through your day and your life, but not making each day a stepping-stone for the next so that you sequentially build a successful life.

Instead of a to-do list, focus on a success list—a list that is purposefully created around extraordinary results.

If your to-do list contains everything, then it’s probably taking you everywhere but where you really want to go.

The majority of what you want will come from the minority of what you do. Extraordinary results are disproportionately created by fewer actions than most realize.

No matter the task, mission, or goal. Big or small. Start with as large a list as you want, but develop the mindset that you will whittle your way from there to the critical few and not stop until you end with the essential ONE.

There will always be just a few things that matter more than the rest, and out of those, one will matter most.

Doing the most important thing is always the most important thing.

Chapter 5: Multitasking

When you try to do two things at once, you either can’t or won’t do either well.

It’s not that we have too little time to do all the things we need to do, it’s that we feel the need to do too many things in the time we have.

Researchers estimate that workers are interrupted every 11 minutes and then spend almost a third of their day recovering from these distractions.

When you switch from one task to another, voluntarily or not, two things happen. The first is nearly instantaneous: you decide to switch. The second is less predictable: you have to activate the “rules” for whatever you’re about to do.

Task switching exacts a cost few realize they’re even paying.

You can do two things at once, but you can’t focus effectively on two things at once.

Every time you try to do two or more things at once, you’re simply dividing up our focus and dumbing down all of the outcomes in the process.

Researchers estimate we lose 28 percent of an average workday to multitasking ineffectiveness.

Why would we ever tolerate multitasking when we’re doing our most important work?

Chapter 6: A Disciplined Life

Success is actually a short race—a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.

When you discipline yourself, you’re essentially training yourself to act in a specific way. Stay with this long enough and it becomes routine—in other words, a habit.

You can become successful with less discipline than you think, for one simple reason: success is about doing the right thing, not about doing everything right.

The trick to success is to choose the right habit and bring just enough discipline to establish it.

When you do the right thing, it can liberate you from having to monitor everything.

It takes an average of 66 days to acquire a new habit.

It takes time to develop the right habit, so don’t give up too soon. Decide what the right one is, then give yourself all the time you need and apply all the discipline you can summon to develop it.

Those with the right habits seem to do better than others. They’re doing the most important thing regularly and, as a result, everything else is easier.

Chapter 7: Willpower Is Always on Call

When we tie our success to our willpower without understanding what that really means, we set ourselves up for failure.

Willpower is always on will-call is a lie.

The more we use our mind, the less minding power we have.

You make doing what matters most a priority when your willpower is its highest.

So, if you want to get the most out of your day, do your most important work—your ONE Thing—early, before your willpower is drawn down.

Chapter 8: A Balanced Life

Viewed wistfully as a noun, balance is lived practically as a verb.

A balanced life is a lie.

In your effort to attend to all things, everything gets shortchanged and nothing gets its due.

When you gamble with your time, you may be placing a bet you can’t cover.

No matter how hard you try, there will always be things left undone at the end of your day, week, month, year, and life. Trying to get them all done is folly. When the things that matter most get done, you’ll still be left with a sense of things being undone—a sense of imbalance. Leaving some things undone is a necessary tradeoff for extraordinary results.

To achieve an extraordinary result you must choose what matters most and give it all the time it demands. This requires getting extremely out of balance in relation to all other work issues, with only infrequent counterbalancing to address them.

When you act on your priority, you’ll automatically go out of balance, giving more time to one thing over another.

Chapter 9: Big Is Bad

Big is bad is a lie.

When big is believed to be bad, small thinking rules the day and big never sees the light of it.

No one knows their ultimate ceiling for achievement, so worrying about it is a waste of time.

When you allow yourself to accept that big is about who you can become, you look at it differently.

Believing in big frees you to ask different questions, follow different paths, and try new things.

The only actions that become springboards to succeeding big are those informed by big thinking to begin with.

What you build today will either empower or restrict you tomorrow.

Achievement and abundance show up because they’re the natural outcomes of doing the right things with no limits attached.

Only living big will let you experience your true life and work potential.

“I was truly beginning to think that the secret to success was to get as tightly wound up as possible each morning, set myself on fire, and then open the door and fly through the day, unwinding on the world, until I literally burnt out. And what did all of this get me? It got me success, and it got me sick. Eventually, it got me sick of success.”

We overthink, overplan, and over-analyze our careers, our businesses, and our lives; that long hours are neither virtuous nor healthy; and that we usually succeed in spite of most of what we do, not because of it. We can’t manage time. The key to success isn’t in all the things we do but in the handful of things we do well.

Success comes down to being appropriate in the moments of your life. If you can honestly say, “This is where I’m meant to be right now, doing exactly what I’m doing,” then all the amazing possibilities for your life become possible.

Chapter 10: The Focusing Question

Answers come from questions, and the quality of any answer is directly determined by the quality of the question. Ask the wrong question, get the wrong answer. Ask the right question, get the right answer. Ask the most powerful question possible, and the answer can be life-altering.

Voltaire once wrote, “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.”

One of the most empowering moments of Keller’s life came when he realized that life is a question and how we live it is our answer.

How we phrase the questions we ask ourselves determines the answers that eventually become our life.

Anyone who dreams of an uncommon life eventually discovers there is no choice but to seek an uncommon approach to living it.

The Focusing Question is so deceptively simple that its power is easily dismissed by anyone who doesn’t closely examine it.

The Focusing Question can lead you to answer not only “big picture” questions (Where am I going? What target should I aim for?) but also “small focus” ones as well (What must I do right now to be on the path to getting the big picture? Where’s the bulls-eye?).

Extraordinary results are rarely happenstance. They come from the choices we make and the actions we take.

The Focusing Question always aims you at the absolute best of both by forcing you to do what is essential to success—make a decision.

To stay on track for the best possible day, month, year, or career, you must keep asking the Focusing Question.

The Focusing Question collapses all possible questions into one: “What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

Most people struggle to comprehend how many things don’t need to be done if they would just start by doing the right thing.

Chapter 11: The Success Habit

Start with the big stuff and see where it takes you.

The Focusing Question is the foundational habit Keller uses to achieve extraordinary results and lead a big life.

The Focusing Question can direct you to your ONE Thing in the different areas of your life.

You can also include a time frame—such as “right now” or “this year”—to give your answer the appropriate level of immediacy, or “in five years” or “someday” to find a big-picture answer that points you at outcomes to aim for.

Say the category first, then state the question, add a time frame, and end by adding “such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” For example: “For my job, what’s the ONE Thing I can do to ensure I hit my goals this week such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

Chapter 12: The Path to Great Answers

Answers come in three categories: doable, stretch, and possibility.

Extraordinary results require a Great Answer.

If you want the most from your answer, you must realize that it lives outside your comfort zone.

A Great Answer is essentially a new answer.

When moving toward a goal, the first thing to do is ask, “Has anyone else studied or accomplished this or something like it?”

Short of having a conversation with someone who has accomplished what you hope to achieve, in Keller’s experience books and published works offer the most in terms of documented research and role models for success.

The research and experience of others is the best place to start when looking for your answer.

A new answer usually requires new behavior.

There is a natural rhythm to our lives that becomes a simple formula for implementing the ONE Thing and achieving extraordinary results: purpose, priority, and productivity.

Your big ONE Thing is your purpose and your small ONE Thing is the priority you take action on to achieve it.

Great businesses are built one productive person at a time.

Chapter 13: Live with Purpose

Our purpose sets our priority and our priority determines the productivity our actions produce.

Who we are and where we want to go determine what we do and what we accomplish.

How circumstances affect us depends on how we interpret them as they relate to our life.

Once we get what we want, our happiness sooner or later wanes because we quickly become accustomed to what we acquire.

Happiness happens on the way to fulfillment.

Dr. Martin Seligman, past president of the American Psychological Association, believes there are five factors that contribute to our happiness: positive emotion and pleasure, achievement, relationships, engagement, and meaning.

To be financially wealthy you must have a purpose for your life. In other words, without purpose, you’ll never know when you have enough money, and you can never be financially wealthy.

Happiness happens when you have a bigger purpose than having more fulfills, which is why we say happiness happens on the way to fulfillment.

Chapter 14: Live by Priority

Purpose without priority is powerless.

The truth about success is that our ability to achieve extraordinary results in the future lies in stringing together powerful moments, one after the other.

The farther away a reward is in the future, the smaller the immediate motivation to achieve it.

Connect today to all your tomorrows. It matters.

Visualizing the process—breaking a big goal down into the steps needed to achieve it—helps engage the strategic thinking you need to plan for and achieve extraordinary results.

In one study, those who wrote down their goals were 39.5 percent more likely to accomplish them.

Chapter 15: Live for Productivity

Productive action transforms lives.

Putting together a life of extraordinary results simply comes down to getting the most out of what you do, when what you do matters.

The most successful people are the most productive people.

If disproportionate results come from one activity, then you must give that one activity disproportionate time.

To achieve extraordinary results and experience greatness, time block these three things in the following order:    

• Time block your time off
• Time block your ONE Thing
• Time block your planning time

Resting is as important as working.

The most productive people, the ones who experience extraordinary results, design their days around doing their ONE Thing.

Block time as early in your day as you possibly can.

Keller’s recommendation is to block four hours a day.

Normal business culture gets in the way of the very productivity it seeks because of the way people traditionally schedule their time

Paul Graham, from Y Combinator, divides all work into two buckets: maker (do or create) and manager (oversee or direct).

“Maker” time requires large blocks of the clock to write code, develop ideas, generate leads, recruit people, produce products, or execute on projects and plans. This time tends to be viewed in half-day increments.

“Manager time,” on the other hand, gets divided into hours. This time typically has one moving from meeting to meeting, and because those who oversee or direct tend to have power and authority, “they are in a position to make everyone resonate at their frequency.”

To experience extraordinary results, be a maker in the morning and a manager in the afternoon.

Block an hour each week to review your annual and monthly goals.

There is magic in knocking down your most important domino day after day.

The best way to protect your time blocks is to adopt the mindset that they can’t be moved.

Your own need to do other things instead of your ONE Thing may be your biggest challenge to overcome.

Chapter 16: The Three Commitments

Achieving extraordinary results through time blocking requires three commitments. First, you must adopt the mindset of someone seeking mastery. Second, you must continually seek the very best ways of doing things. And last, you must be willing to be held accountable to doing everything you can to achieve your ONE Thing.

When you can see mastery as a path you go down instead of a destination you arrive at, it starts to feel accessible and attainable.

More than anything else, expertise tracks with hours invested.

The pursuit of mastery bears gifts.

When coaching top performers, Keller often ask, “Are you doing this to simply do the best you can do, or are you doing this to do it the best it can be done?”

The path of mastering something is the combination of not only doing the best you can do, but also doing it the best it can be done.

Accountable people achieve results others only dream of.

Highly successful people are clear about their role in the events of their life.

Anders Ericsson observed that “the single most important difference between these amateurs and the three groups of elite performers is that the future elite performers seek out teachers and coaches and engage in supervised training, whereas the amateurs rarely engage in similar types of practice.”

Chapter 17: The Four Thieves

The Four Thieves of Productivity

• Inability to Say “No”
• Fear of Chaos
• Poor Health Habits
• Environment Doesn’t Support Your Goals

The way to protect what you’ve said yes to and stay productive is to say no to anyone or anything that could derail you.

When you say yes to something, it’s imperative that you understand what you’re saying no to.

Saying yes to everyone is the same as saying yes to nothing.

You can’t please everyone, so don’t try.

A request must be connected to my ONE Thing for me to consider it.

When you strive for greatness, chaos is guaranteed to show up.

Personal energy mismanagement is a silent thief of productivity.

High achievement and extraordinary results require big energy.

The Highly Productive Person’s Daily Energy Plan

• Meditate and pray for spiritual energy  
• Eat right, exercise, and sleep sufficiently for physical energy
• Hug, kiss, and laugh with loved ones for emotional energy
• Set goals, plan, and calendar for mental energy
• Time block your ONE Thing for business energy

When you spend the early hours energizing yourself, you get pulled through the rest of the day with little additional effort.

Your environment must support your goals.

For you to achieve extraordinary results, the people surrounding you and your physical surroundings must support your goals.

No one succeeds alone and no one fails alone. Pay attention to the people around you.

When you clear the path to success—that’s when you consistently get there.

At any moment in time there can be only ONE Thing, and when that ONE Thing is in line with your purpose and sits atop your priorities, it will be the most productive thing you can do to launch you toward the best you can be.

A life worth living might be measured in many ways, but the one way that stands above all others is living a life of no regrets.

When you know what matters most, everything makes sense. When you don’t know what matters most, anything makes sense.

Recommended Reading

If you like The One Thing , you may also enjoy the following books:

• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
• Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
• Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek

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The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

This is an audiobook for busy people. If you want less on your plate and more for your life and career, tune in to the #1 Wall Street Journal best seller, The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results . The ONE Thing will bring your life and your work into focus. Authors Gary Keller and Jay Papasan teach you the tricks to cut through the clutter, achieve better results in less time, dial down stress, and master what matters to you. Unabridged version includes:

• A special foreword by Gary Keller. Interludes by legendary guitarist Monte Montgomery.

What’s your ONE Thing? For more information on The ONE Thing, events, coaching, and tools, visit www.The1Thing.com.

• Listening Length 5 hours and 28 minutes
• Author Gary Keller, see all
• Narrator Timothy Miller, see all
• Audible release date October 8, 2013
• Language English
• Publisher Rellek Publishing Partners, Ltd.
• ASIN B00FPVS27W
• Version Unabridged
• Program Type Audiobook
• See all details

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Customers find the book easy to read and visually aided in retention of important concepts. They also say the content is insightful and easy to implement. Readers describe the pace as smooth and relevant. However, some feel the book is repetitive and not as great as the author.

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Customers find the book insightful, inspirational, and motivational. They appreciate the author's ability to get to the point and demonstrate it with excellent examples. They also say the book is captivating and changes their perspective.

"...Overall, “The ONE Thing” is an insightful and practical book that encourages readers to prioritize their efforts and focus on what truly matters to..." Read more

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Customers find the book easy to read, practical, and straight to the point. They also say the visuals aided in their retention of important concepts. Readers also say that the quotes look good and the book is helpful for organizing priorities, projects, and goals.

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Customers find the book gets to the point quickly and is a quick, easy read. They also say it's a good reminder and lesson on time management.

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Customers find the book practical, with strong and actionable concepts. They say it's easy to understand and implement Gary's action steps.

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"...There are some interesting exercises to do (like “Goal Setting to the Now”) but apart from the main idea that you need to focus on your ONE Thing as..." Read more

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"An amazingly easy , straightforward read that has helped me immensely professionally...." Read more

"...Great read full of gold. Simple process that anyone can apply to their business or industry." Read more

"...the theory to a basic & practical way of working which can be easily applied ...." Read more

"...But a lot of the points are really simple , and not too mind-blowing...." Read more

Customers find the direction of the book important yet neglected.

"...this book to be an amazing set of stories, principles, and tips on how to intensify focus and achieve extraordinary results in life...." Read more

"...Of course, Focusing Question is great . Well, well, all things are great in this book. You never regret, just pick it...." Read more

"...The focusing question gave me clarity . I was able to drill down to the One Thing in my life that would make me more resourceful...." Read more

"...If you know what your one thing is, this book will help you find a greater focus ...." Read more

Customers find the book helpful for reducing multitasking and encouraging the importance of prioritization.

"...The highlight off this book is that I have been delivered from multitasking and focusing on my “One Thing”, which I was able to experience the..." Read more

"...It is a simple idea to not multitask and to work on one thing at a time...." Read more

"...And yes, I see a difference in my priorities and work schedule ." Read more

"I like that it’s obvious but still a good reminder. It’s helping me to stop multitasking and pay attention to what I’m doing...." Read more

Customers find the book repetitive, disjointed, unrealistic, and not worth the read. They also mention that the results are predictably bad.

"...book, the fact that we must focus on our ONE Thing, is somehow not well introduced ...." Read more

"...It covers a lot of really basic things, and gets a little repetitive sometimes.For example:X was famous. X's story is blah blah blah...." Read more

"...Upon a closer examination, the book is sorely disappointing .The author tries to fit everything in the context of "The One Thing"...." Read more

"...It is also dry and a bit repetitive at times . The information is good, but could've been delivered better.A few of my favorite passages:..." Read more

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