PDF Summary:The One Thing, by Gary Keller

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A scene in the 1990s movie City Slickers sums up the One Thing approach. Curly, a crusty cowboy played by Jack Palance, advises city slicker Mitch, played by Billy Crystal: “One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean sh-t.” Mitch asks, “What’s the one thing?” and Curly replies, “That’s what you have to figure out.”

The One Thing, which Keller co-authored with Jay Papasan, is about achieving exceptional success by figuring out and focusing on your One Thing every day.

Go Small

Everyone has the same number of hours in a day, yet some people accomplish more than others in the same amount of time because they “go small” or narrow their daily focus.

Going small is:

• Ignoring the vast array of things you could do and focusing on the right things.
• Recognizing that everything isn’t equally important and finding the things that matter the most.
• Connecting what you do (your immediate actions) with what you ultimately want, realizing that you get big results by narrowing your daily focus.

Most people think and act in the opposite way. Achieving big goals seems too complicated and time-consuming, so they set modest goals and...

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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.

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• When you’re passionate about something, you devote an inordinate amount of time to working on it or practicing, which translates into skill.
• As your skill grows, your enjoyment and results grow. You invest more time, creating a cycle that leads to extraordinary success.

For example, American long-distance runner Gilbert Tuhabonye’s passion for running became a skill that led to a profession, which gave him the opportunity to contribute to the welfare of his native country. Born in Burundi, he was a national champion runner who escaped being killed during a civil war by outrunning his enemies. He was recruited by and attended Abilene Christian University in Texas, where he won All-America honors and later became a popular running coach. With professional success, he began a foundation to raise money to provide water systems in Burundi.

Applying the One Thing principle to your work and life is the most effective way to achieve extraordinary success.

One Life

Bill Gates is the paramount example of a person who has harnessed One Thing at various key moments to create an extraordinary life:

• He had one passion in high school: computers.
• One person, Paul...

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Here are the differences between a to-do list and a success list:

• To-do list: long, disorganized, pulls you in many directions
• Success list: short, prioritized, aims you in a specific direction using sequential stepping stones to success

If a list isn’t built for success, it won’t get you there. If it covers everything, it will take you everywhere but where you want to go.

To turn your to-do list into a success list, follow the 80/20 rule and prioritize.

The 80/20 rule

The 80/20 rule, also called the Pareto Principle, states that a minority of effort (20%) produces the majority (80%) of the results.

In the 19th century, economist Vilfredo Pareto used it to describe wealth concentration in Italy, where 20% of the people owned 80% of the land. Much later, U.S. quality control expert Joseph Juran applied the idea to manufacturing, theorizing that a small number of flaws in the manufacturing process would produce a majority of product defects. Juran referred to the idea of the “vital few” versus the “trivial many” as the Pareto principle.

**If a minority of your effort leads to the majority of results, then focusing on the few, highest-impact things is...

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A conflict occurs when an activity requires a brain channel already in use or when one task demands greater attention—for example:

• If you’re walking across a gorge on a rope bridge, you’ll have to stop talking and pay attention to your hands and feet.
• When you’re “absentmindedly” petting your dog while watching a football game on TV, your dog knows he’s not getting your full attention and nudges you.
• If you’re driving while your spouse is talking to you about rearranging the living room furniture, you’ll focus on a mental picture of the living room instead of seeing the car braking in front of you.

Downsides of Multitasking

Today’s workplaces are a multitasking circus, which costs time and productivity.

For instance, when a coworker interrupts you with a question while you’re working on a spreadsheet, you have to switch your attention to the new task and then later restart the one you suspended. This takes time—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%...

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How long it takes to form a new habit depends on the nature of the habit. Self-help advocates often assert that it takes 21 days to make a change. However, researchers at the University College of London determined that it takes about 66 days—easier behaviors take fewer days to establish and difficult ones take more.

So don’t quit too soon. Decide on the right habit and apply discipline, giving yourself enough time for it to become second nature. Remember that success is sequential, and build new habits one at a time, building on the success of the previous habit with each new one.

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Activities that drain willpower include:

• Establishing new habits
• Fighting distractions
• Resisting temptation
• Suppressing emotion, aggression, or impulses
• Taking tests
• Trying to impress
• Handling fear
• Doing something you dislike
• Choosing long-term over short-term benefits

When you do things without thinking that diminish your willpower, it’s like making a hole in your car’s gas line: your willpower leaks away, leaving none for your most important work.

To put your willpower to work effectively, pay attention to it and manage it. To get the most out of your day, do your One Thing early before your willpower is drawn down. Build your activities around it, so you can count on it when you need it.

Recharging Your Willpower

One way to recharge your willpower is to feed it. Your brain consumes one-fifth of the calories your body burns. When your brain isn’t getting enough food energy, you lose willpower.

What happens is that when nutrients run low, your body prioritizes which parts of the brain get the available calories. The parts of the brain that regulate breathing and nervous responses get first dibs. There may be nothing left for...

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When you counterbalance, you focus on your One Thing at work or at home, and shift to another area only when you need to. Like a ballerina, you remain aware of what’s happening and make adjustments as necessary one at a time.

How Counterbalancing Works

The question isn’t whether you allow aspects of your life to be out of balance while you focus on the most important thing in a particular area—it’s for how long: a short period or a long one.

At work, go long—accept that achieving extraordinary results will require extraordinary focus on One Thing for long periods. This means allowing other work tasks to go undone for long periods, with only occasional counterbalancing or shifting focus to address the most pressing ones.

In your personal life, go short. The key is to be aware of personal and family needs and constantly counterbalance or switch your focus to address them. You can’t neglect your family, friends, and personal interests for long without causing irreparable damage. Shift back and forth quickly between personal priorities to ensure you’re leaving nothing unattended for long.

In your work, some things necessarily will fall by the wayside; in...

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The Importance of Mindset

Stanford psychologist Carol S. Dweck studied how our thinking or mindset influences our actions. She identified two mindsets: a “growth” mindset that thinks big and seeks growth and a fixed mindset that thinks small and seeks to avoid failure. (Shortform note: Read the Shortform summary of Mindset by Carol S. Dweck here.)

Dweck found that growth-minded students used better learning strategies, were more confident, applied greater effort, and achieved more academically than their fixed-minded peers. They didn’t limit themselves and tended to reach for their potential.

Dweck noted that you can change your mindset to a more positive way of thinking, like any new habit, by applying discipline until the mindset becomes routine.

There’s no telling where thinking big can take you. Apple executive Scott Forstall looked for growth-minded people when seeking recruits to work on a new, top-secret project. He advertised for people willing to make mistakes and struggle on the chance they could come up with something extraordinary. He accepted only those who immediately jumped at the challenge....

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• Everything else will be easier or unnecessary: Your one action will be leverage for further action toward accomplishing your goal. After completing your action, the subsequent steps will be easier and some may not be necessary. Many things don’t need to be done if you avoid distractions and start by doing the right thing. Your One Thing will be the first domino.

In summary, the focusing question is both big picture and small focus: your One Thing is your big-picture goal, and your One Thing right now is your priority today for getting there.

The Success Habit

The focusing question can be a success habit when you make it a way of life. You can ask the question when you start your day, when you get to work, and when you get home: “What’s the One Thing that will have the biggest impact?” With practice, you’ll know whether to use the big-picture or small-focus version.

You can apply it to every area of your life—spiritual, health, personal, relationships, job, and finances—to ensure that you’re doing what matters most. Customize the focusing question by inserting your area of focus; you can also include a time frame (this year/month). For instance:

• **For my...

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In reality, lasting happiness comes from becoming engaged in and finding meaning in what you do; your daily actions are driven by a bigger purpose. Happiness occurs in the process of fulfilling your purpose.

Find Your Purpose

Following are some tips for discovering your purpose. Remember that you can always change it; the key is to get started. (Shortform note: For more details, download the author’s free worksheet here.)

1. Write down a handful of activities you’re passionate about—for example, activities involving family, work, community, or a hobby.
2. List several outcomes you’re passionate about.
3. Pick one activity and one outcome most important to you.
4. Combine your activity and outcome to answer the question, “What’s the One Thing I can do that would mean the most to me, such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?”

Post your One Thing where you’ll see it often. Try it for a while, even if you’re not completely satisfied with it. You can always revise it or develop a better one later.

2) Choose Your Priority

**Your purpose specifies where you want to go....

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Doing something the best you can is an entrepreneurial approach. With an entrepreneurial mindset, you see what needs to be done and jump into it by applying your energy and ability. However, everyone has an ability limit and will top out. For instance, some people hit their home-repair skill limit as soon as they pick up a hammer, while others are more expert at using it. If your goal is to just do your best, then you’re done once you reach your talent limit. Your best effort won’t bring you exceptional success—that requires continually improving how you do your One Thing.

Instead of an entrepreneurial approach, you must take a purposeful approach. This means not stopping when you reach your knowledge and talent limit, but seeking new and better ways to do what you’re doing.

Here’s an example comparing the two approaches:

• An entrepreneurial approach to cutting firewood would be to pick up an ax and head for the woodpile.
• A purposeful approach would be to look for the best or most efficient way to cut wood: a chainsaw or a log splitter.

A purposeful approach applies the rule that getting a different or better result requires doing something different....

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Of course, there are likely to be times when you’ll need to adjust to life’s demands and circumstances. The key is to be creative rather than becoming a victim of your circumstances and giving up.

Everyone’s circumstances are unique and require a unique response. Your time block may look different from someone else’s. You may not be able to block off a morning—your time block may have to be at a different time of day for a while. You may have to trade off time with someone else, so you protect each other’s time blocks.

When you commit to One Thing, you’ll ultimately achieve exceptional results, which will increase your ability to manage the chaos. So work around the chaos of the present and trust that doing the right thing will pay off big in the long run.

3) Poor Health Habits

When you constantly try to do too much, you’ll eventually pay a price with your health. For instance, you may strive for success at the expense of your health by working long hours, staying up too late and sleeping poorly, missing meals, not taking time off, and not exercising.

This may seem to work for a time, but there are two problems:

• You can’t do your best work or be...

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• Embraced happiness (realizing happiness is a choice)
• Kept in touch with friends
• Had the courage to express feelings
• Not worked so hard
• Lived their dreams, not others’ expectations.

Other researchers have also found that what people regret most at the end of life are the things they didn’t do. The way to avoid this is to make sure that each day you do what matters most, so that everything else falls into place. You are the engineer of your success and are the first domino.