The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results

by Gary Keller

hyperbolic discounting—the further away a reward is in the future, the smaller the immediate motivation to achieve it.

“Productivity isn’t about being a workhorse, keeping busy or burning the midnight oil... . It’s more about priorities, planning, and fiercely protecting your time.” —Margarita Tartakovsky

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

“Well, if everyone has the same amount of time and yet some earn more than others,” I ask, “can we then say that it’s how we use our time that determines the money we make?”

Most people think there’s never enough time to be successful, but there is when you block it. Time blocking is a very results-oriented way of viewing and using time. It’s a way of making sure that what has to be done gets done.

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

“Efficiency is doing the thing right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing.” —Peter Drucker

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

Your goal is “ONE and done.” But if you don’t time block each day to do your ONE Thing, your ONE Thing won’t become a done thing.

“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.” As you complete these short races and get a chain going, it gets easier and easier. Momentum and motivation start to take over.

“Until My ONE Thing Is Done—Everything Else Is A Distraction!”

The people who achieve extraordinary results don’t achieve them by working more hours. They achieve them by getting more done in the hours they work.

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

Accountable people achieve results others only dream of. When life happens, you can be either the author of your life or the victim of it. Those are your only two choices— accountable or unaccountable. This may sound harsh, but it’s true.

it’s critical that you acquire an accountability relationship and give your partner license to lay out the honest truth. An accountability partner isn’t a cheerleader, although he can lift you up.

“Focus is a matter of deciding what things you’re not going to do.” —John Carmack

The art of saying yes is, by default, the art of saying no. Saying yes to everyone is the same as saying yes to nothing.

Seth Godin says, “You can say no with respect, you can say no promptly, and you can say no with a lead to someone who might say yes. But just saying yes because you can’t bear the short-term pain of saying no is not going to help you do the work.”

When we keep borrowing against our future by poorly protecting our energy, there is a predictable outcome of either slowly running out of gas or prematurely crashing and burning.

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.