The One Thing – Book Summary

Gary Keller and Jay Papasan start with a crucial concept that many other authors recommend: begin with the end in mind. They suggest imagining your life as a huge stack of dominoes lined up from NOW all the way to your SOMEDAY long-term goal.

Then they ask to reverse-engineer your goals by working backwards and defining your:

• Someday goal - what's this ONE thing that I want to do someday (in 10 or 20 years time) ?
• 5-year goal - based on the someday goal what's the ONE thing I want to do in the next 5 years ?
• 1-year goal - based on the 5-year goal what's the ONE thing I want to do this year ?
• Monthly goal - based on the yearly goal above, what's the ONE thing I need to this month ?
• Weekly goal - what ONE thing can I do this week to achieve my monthly goals ? 
• Daily goal - what is my ONE thing for today that will contribute to my weekly goals ? 
• Now goal - what is my ONE thing right now to help me achieve my daily goals ? 

To support the process of goal setting to the now use ONE simple question: "What is the ONE thing I can do to make everything else easier or unnecessary ?".

The entire book is based on this simple question that will make all the difference in your life.

To make use of this simple principle consider completing the following actions: 

• use the wheel of life tool to identify all areas of your life that matter the most and filter everything else out
• for each of the areas ask this simple laser focusing question:  "What is the ONE thing I can do to make everything else easier or unnecessary ?"
• based on the answers create your personal peak performance framework (or tweak the existing if you have one) to start hitting those important goals in your life

Keller insists in his book that we don't need a TO-DO list, we need a success list instead.

What is a success list?

It is a TO-DO list on steroids: a list taken through the 80/20 rule at least 3 times:

Never heard about the 80/20 rule or need a reminder ? It's simple and brilliant:

1. It takes 20% of the efforts to generate 80% of the results and
2. The remaining 80% of the efforts only account for the 20% of the results

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at the process of distilling a huge TO-DO list into a much smaller subset of super important tasks. The ones that move the needle and make all the difference in your career, business, or personal life:

As you can see, the idea is to take your grand list of all things that are on your mind and apply the 80/20 rule 3 times in a row:

1. Determine 20% of the tasks that will deliver 80% of the results
2. Take the result and apply the 80/20 rule again by cherry picking 20% of the 20%
3. Apply the rule one more time to come up with the final list of things that matter the most

The end result?

20% of 20% of 20% = 0.8%

Of. The. Whole. List.

You have just eliminated 99.2% of the lower value tasks that are not as important right NOW.

Pure Gold.

Once you have identified your success list and started working on it, resolve to protect your time from the 4 main thieves of productivity.

If you are not a seasoned peak performer yet, having your ONE thing distilled is not enough.

Of those few people who are lucky enough to go through the process of identifying the ONE thing (by now you are one of them), the majority will fail to protect it.

The inability to say NO to everything else will be a determining factor contributing to an EPIC failure. Chasing and saying YES to other unimportant things will be the main reason why.

If you are not a seasoned peak performer yet, having your ONE thing distilled is not enough.

Of those few people who are lucky enough to go through the process of identifying the ONE thing (by now you are one of them), the majority will fail to protect it.

The inability to say NO to everything else will be a determining factor contributing to an EPIC failure. Chasing and saying YES to other unimportant things will be the main reason why.

This will result into excruciatingly painful experience of being overwhelmed, tired, and frustrated.

Sadly, most people will never see it through.

But you will be different, right ? 

Another major enemy is the fear of chaos. If your ONE thing is bold enough, there will be moments of total uncertainty on how to achieve your goal.

Don't despair. Things get very complicated and chaotic just before the moment of full clarity arrives.

Everyone can burn the midnight oil when success is guaranteed. But only a few people persevere through dark times of self- defeating thoughts, doubts, and poor self image.

Just. Keep. Going.

The more you focus on your ONE thing the clearer the picture becomes eventually clicking into place in your mind.

Keller identifies personal energy mismanagement as the 3-d enemy of productivity. He highlights that poor health habits slow us down enormously:

Here is a list of habits the author recommends to develop to beat the enemy:

• For physical energy eat healthy, exercise, and sleep well:

• For spiritual energy start or continue meditating:

• For emotional energy spends time with your family and friends:

• For mental energy master the skill of goal setting and planning

• Another great way to boost your mental energy is to start using time blocking technique to eliminate interruptions and focus on deep work:

One of the greatest enemies of extreme happiness and incredible results is your environment. Jim Rohn said it well: "You are the average of 5 people you spend most of your time with".

Think about your typical day and come up with as many different environments as you possible can:

• family
• work
• business
• driving
• commuting
• socializing

For each of the environments identify a list of people you are surrounded by.

• Do they support you by pushing you beyond your limits ?
• Or do they want you to be just like them?
• Or even worse, do they bully, criticize, and undermine you all the time?

Who are these 5 people in your life in each of the environments ?

Who are you?

At the end Keller refers to one of the best books on understanding the true value of life: The Top 5 Regrets Of The Dying. Bronnie Ware, the author of the book, worked in palliative care for years. During that time she formed many short friendships with quite a few old people who were dying.

She then summarized everything she learnt in the book. According to her research the top 5 regrets of the dying are:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier

But why would Keller refer to this theme in his own book ?

Because apart from obvious reasons outlined in this review, understanding and accepting a simple fact that all people die at some point brings everything into perspective. It sharpens the focus and the desire to live life fully.

Every. Single. Day.

Refuse to be beaten by life. Spend no time worrying about things that don't really matter.

Find the ONE thing in each area of your life, roll your sleeves up, and enjoy the journey.