The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results

by Gary Keller

“Be like a postage stamp— stick to one thing until you get there.” —Josh Billings

week. ... Finally, out of desperation, I went as small as I could possibly go and asked: “What’s the ONE Thing you can do this week such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?”

Tim Ferriss

Where I’d had huge success, I had narrowed my concentration to one thing, and where my success varied, my 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.

“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.

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

“Every great change starts like falling dominoes.” — BJ Thornton

So when you think about success, shoot for the moon. The moon is reachable if you prioritize everything and put all of your energy into accomplishing the most important thing. Getting extraordinary results is all about creating a domino effect in your life.

find the lead domino, and whack away at it until it falls. Why does this approach work? Because extraordinary success is sequential, not simultaneous. What starts out linear becomes geometric. You do the right thing and then you do the next right thing. Over time it adds up, and the geometric potential of success is unleashed. The domino effect applies to the big picture, like your work or your business, and it applies to the smallest moment in each day when you’re trying to decide what to do next. Success builds on success, and as this happens, over and over, you move toward the highest success possible.

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

“It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world.” — Og Mandino

“There can only be one most important thing. Many things may be important, but only one can be the most important.” —Ross Garber

Everyone has one person who either means the most to them or was the first to influence, train, or manage them. No one succeeds alone. No one.

“You must be single-minded. Drive for the one thing on which you have decided.” —General George S. Patton

Passion for something leads to disproportionate time practicing or working at it. That time spent eventually translates to skill, and when skill improves, results improve. Better results generally lead to more enjoyment, and more passion and more time is invested. It can be a virtuous cycle all the way to extraordinary results.

“Success demands singleness of purpose.” — Vince Lombardi

The ONE Thing shows up time and again in the lives of the successful because it’s a fundamental truth. It showed up for me, and if you let it, it will show up for you. Applying the ONE Thing to your work—and in your life—is the simplest and smartest thing you can do to propel yourself toward the success you want.

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

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” —Mark Twain

THE SIX LIES BETWEEN YOU AND SUCCESS Everything Matters Equally Multitasking A Disciplined Life Willpower Is Always on Will-Call A Balanced Life Big Is Bad

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Equality is a lie. Understanding this is the basis of all great decisions.

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

As Henry David Thoreau said, “It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?”

While to-dos serve as a useful collection of our best intentions, they also tyrannize us with trivial, unimportant stuff that we feel obligated to get done—because it’s on our list. Which is why most of us have a love-hate relationship with our to-dos.

Achievers operate differently. They 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 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.

To-do lists tend to be long; success lists are short. One pulls you in all directions; the other aims you in a specific direction. One is a disorganized directory and the other is an organized directive. If a list isn’t built around success, then that’s not where it takes you. If your to-do list contains everything, then it’s probably taking you everywhere but where you really want to go.

“The 80/20 Principle asserts that a minority of causes, inputs, or effort usually lead to a majority of the results, outputs, or rewards.”

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.

A to-do list becomes a success list when you apply Pareto’s Principle to it.

BIG IDEAS Go small. Don’t focus on being busy; focus on being productive. Allow what matters most to drive your day. Go extreme. Once you’ve figured out what actually matters, keep asking what matters most until there is only one thing left. That core activity goes at the top of your success list. Say no. 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. Don’t get trapped in the “check off” game. If we believe things don’t matter equally, we must act accordingly. We can’t fall prey to the notion that everything has to be done, that checking things off our list is what success is all about. We can’t be trapped in a game of “check off” that never produces a winner. The truth is that things don’t matter equally and success is found in doing what matters most.

Success list

doing the most important thing is always the most important thing.

“To do two things at once is to do neither.” —Publilius Syrus

Multitasking is a lie.

“Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.” —Steve Uzzell

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.

But we’re fooling ourselves. Multitasking is a scam. Poet laureate Billy Collins summed it up well: “We call it multitasking, which makes it sound like an ability to do lots of things at the same time. ... A Buddhist would call this monkey mind.” We think we’re mastering multitasking, but we’re just driving ourselves bananas.

“The cost in terms of extra time from having to task switch depends on how complex or simple the tasks are,”

“It can range from time increases of 25 percent or less for simple tasks to well over 100 percent or more for very complicated tasks.”

Task switching exacts a cost few realize they...

Here’s the short list of how multitasking short-circuits us: There is just so much brain capability at any one time. Divide it up as much as you want, but you’ll pay a price in time and effectiveness. The more time you spend switched to another task, the less likely you are to get back to your original task. This is how loose ends pile up. Bounce between one activity and another and you lose time as your brain reorients to the new task. Those milliseconds add up. Researchers estimate we lose 28 percent of an average workday to multitasking ineffectiveness. Chronic multitaskers develop a distorted sense of how long it takes to do things. They almost always believe tasks take longer to complete than is actually required. Multitaskers make more mistakes than non-multitaskers. They often make poorer decisions because they favor new information over old, even if the older information is more valuable. Multitaskers experience more life-reducing, happiness-squelching stress.

living another standard. Do we not value our own job or take it as seriously? Why would we ever tolerate multitasking when we’re doing our most important work? Just because our day job doesn’t involve bypass surgery shouldn’t make focus any less critical to our success or the success of others. Your work deserves no less respect.

BIG IDEAS Distraction is natural. Don’t feel bad when you get distracted. Everyone gets distracted. Multitasking takes a toll. At home or at work, distractions lead to poor choices, painful mistakes, and unnecessary stress. Distraction undermines results. When you try to do too much at once, you can end up doing nothing well. Figure out what matters most in the moment and give it your undivided attention.