The One Thing Notes

Share this note with your friends.

This is my personal notes, taken while reading the book The One Thing. The book helps us make a productive life and achieve goals.

Please note, this article are my notes, not book summary. If you need short book summary, you may read The One Thing: Book Summary

Why read book summaries or someone else’s notes?

I highly recommend reading original books. However, there are times and reasons to read book summaries. Some are “I want to read but not having enough time”, “Before committing time to read whole book, I want to confirm it is worth time investment”, “I can’t purchase the book due to financial reasons”, etc.

If you have any such reason, I welcome you to read my notes taken while reading and hope it will be helpful.

My notes of The One Thing

The One Thing by Gary Keller have 18 chapters divided in three parts.

First three chapters are about laying the foundation of the book and speak about key principles.
Part 1: The Lies, containing chapter 4-9 and discuss about some misconceptions, which are blockers in our path to achieve our one thing.
Part 2: The Truth, from chapters 10-12, lay a foundation to achieve our One Thing.
Part 3: Extraordinary results, from chapter 13-18,

First quote from The One Thing

If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.
– Russian proverb

Chapter 1. The One Thing

Chapter 1 defines what is The One Thing?

A Good question from the chapter:

If everyone has the same number of hours in a day, why do some people seem to get so much done than others?
– The Answer is: They go small

One line summary of the chapter:
- Focus on what matters most. Ask Focusing Question: What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will become easier or unnecessary?
Those who succeed prefer to GO SMALL. They Focus on what matters most and ignore the rest.
- To achieve extraordinary results in life, you must radically focus on one thing.
- We should not trying to do multiple incomplete tasks but one complete thing
- We must give our most time/focus to that one thing
Ask the [[Focusing Question]] – Key finding of the book
- What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will become easier or unnecessary?
- Apply this focusing question to both:
  - Macro level – your someday goal
  - Micro level – Short term or immediate goal
Time Blocking Technique
- Use Time blocking to block the time for your One Thing

Chapter 2. The domino effect

One line summary of the chapter:
- Success is built sequentially over a period of time. Its always one thing at a time.
Learning: Small but consistent work. Success (big goals) are built sequentially.
A single domino can knock down other domino of its double size
If we start with 2 inch domino
- 18 domino will be as high as leaning tower of Giza
- 23rd = Eiffel tower
- 31st = 3000 feet above Mount Everest.
- 57th = Almost the distance to the Moon.

Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
– Francis of Assisi

Chapter 3. Success leaves clues

One line summary of chapter:
- We need to transform a to-do list into a Success list
No one is self-made. And no one succeeds alone.
Achievers, instead of a to-do list, use a Success list — a list that is purposefully created around extraordinary results.
- There will always be just a few things that matter more than the rest, and out of those, one will matter most.
Use Pareto Principle, to find your One Thing.

Part 1: The lies

It ain’t (is not) what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.
It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t (is not) true.
– Mark Twain

The book uses word “Truthy”. The truth that comes out of gut, not books. It is used to describe something that appears to be true but isn’t entirely accurate or is misleading. However, it is not a standard English word. “False truth” better describe “truthy”.

As per The One Thing book, there are 6 lies, or truthy told to us since childhood.

Chapter 4. Lie 1: Everything matters equally

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.
– The One Thing – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

One lin summary of the Chapter
- Equality is a lie.
Equality may be a good concept for morality and politics but in real life, nothing is equal.
When In hurry, people think all tasks are equal, and they start doing less important tasks considering them equally important.
We stuck doing the urgent items on our to-do list, instead of important. Read more about it on Eisenhower Matrix or Priority Quadrant.
Pareto Principle: 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.

Chapter 5. Lie 2: Multitasking

One line summary of the Chapter
- Multitasking is a big lie.
Multitasking is an ineffective way to get more done, and is actually a way to get less done.
We can do two things at once, but we can’t focus effectively on two things at once.
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

Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.
– The One Thing – Steve Uzzell

To do two things at once is to do neither.
– The One Thing – Publilius Syrus

Task switching exacts a cost few realize they’re even paying.
Researchers estimate we lose 28 percent of an average workday to multitasking ineffectiveness.
Distraction is natural. Don’t feel bad when you get distracted. Everyone gets distracted.
- Digital devices and internet is one of the biggest source of distractions now a days. You may want to check [[Digital declutter]] to avoid some of the distractions.

Chapter 6. Lie 3: A disciplined life

One line summary of the Chapter
- Don’t be a disciplined person. Be a person of powerful habits and use selected discipline to develop them.
Make habits, not discipline.
- Discipline is needed only to build a habit.
No one can maintain discipline for a very long period. Its not in human DNA.
- Use discipline to train yourself to act in a specific way
Build one habit at a time. Success is sequential, not simultaneous.
Give each habit enough time. Stick with the discipline long enough for it to become routine.
- Habits, on average, take 66 days to form.
Super-successful people have developed a few significant habits, one at a time, over time.

It’s one of the most prevalent myths of our culture: self-discipline.
– The One Thing – Leo Babauta

Chapter 7: Lie 4: Willpower Is Always on Will-Call

Don’t fight your willpower. Build your days around how it works and let it do its part to build your life.
– The One Thing

One line summary of the Chapter
- Willpower is a limited resource, use it wisely.
Willpower is essential for success and should be managed properly.
Willpower has a limited battery life but can be recharged with some downtime. It’s a limited but renewable resource.
Reserve willpower for what matters most.
Do what matters most first each day when willpower is strongest.
Willpower is affected by blood-sugar levels.
- Have complex carbohydrates and proteins in food.
- Foods that elevate blood sugar evenly over long periods, like complex carbohydrates and proteins, become the fuel of choice for high-achievers—literal proof that “you are what you eat.”

Chapter 8: Lie 5: A Balanced Life

One line summary of the Chapter
- No matter how hard you try, there will always be things left undone at the end of your day, week, month, year, and life.
  - (Leaving some things undone is a necessary tradeoff for extraordinary results.)
You must choose what matters most and give it all the time it demands.
Balance is a lie. When you act on your priority, you’ll automatically go out of balance, giving more time to one thing over another. This is perfectly fine.

Chapter 9: Lie 6: Big Is Bad

We are kept from our goal, not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal
– Robert Brault

One line summary of the Chapter.
- Big is not bad. When big is believed to be bad, small thinking rules the day and big never sees the light of it.
Thinking big is essential for achieving extraordinary results.
Do not fear failure and see it as part of the learning process.
No one knows their ultimate ceiling for achievement, so worrying about it is a waste of time.
THINK BIG > ACT BIG > SUCCEED BIG.
What you build today will either empower or restrict you tomorrow.
- It will either serve
  - as a platform for the next level of your success
  - OR as a box, trapping you where you are.

The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.”
– Thomas Henry Huxley

Part 2: The Truth

Part 1 discussed about the lies. Part 2 discusses the truth.

A quote at the start of Part 2 by Erich Heller: Be careful how you interpret the world; it is like that.

Chapter 10: Focusing Question

One line summary of the Chapter
- Ask the [[Focusing Question]]:
  - What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?
This chapter introduces the Focusing Question as the ultimate success habit.
Great questions are the path to great answers.
The Focusing Question is a great question designed to find a great answer. It will help you find the first domino for your job, your business, or any other area in which you want to achieve extraordinary results.
Life is a question and how we live it is our answer.
Most people struggle to comprehend how many things don’t need to be done if they would just start by doing the right thing.
Focusing question is a big-picture map and small-focus compass
- Big Picture: What is my One Thing?
- Small Focus: What is my One Thing right now?

Chapter 11: The Success Habit

Five step summary of the Chapter
- Understand and believe the One Thing
- Use it
- Make it a habit
- Leverage remainders
- Recruit support
Make the focusing question a habit.
Ask focusing question for every aspect of the life.
- For my job
- For my business
- For my finance
- For my spiritual life
- For my physical health
- For my personal life
- For my key relationships

Success is simple. Do what’s right, the right way, at the right time.
– Arnold H. Glasow

Chapter 12: The Path to Great Answers

People do not decide their futures; they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.
– F. M. Alexander

One line summary of the Chapter
- Answers to your questions have three categories: Doable, Stretch, Possibility.
Easiest answers are those that are doable and already within reach.
The best answers explore what’s possible
If you want the most from your answer, you must realize that it lives outside your comfort zone.
Use benchmarking and trending to find the best answer.
The research and experience of others is the best place to start when looking for your answer.
Your big ONE Thing is your purpose and your small ONE Thing is the priority you take action on to achieve it.

Part 3: Extraordinary results

As the name suggest, part 3 of the book deals with how to achieve extraordinary results.
It first suggest three step formula:
- Live with Purpose
- Live by Priority
- Live for Productivity
Later three chapters discuss:
- The Three Commitments
- The Four Thieves
- The Journey

Chapter 13: Live with Purpose

One line summary of the Chapter
- Discover your purpose and live with it.
Our purpose sets our priority and our priority determines the productivity our actions produce.
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
  - He believes engagement and meaning are the most important.
- Lasting happiness happens when you make your life about something bigger, when you bring meaning and purpose to your everyday actions
- A life lived on purpose is the most powerful and happiest
Discover your big WHY?
- What’s the thing that gets you up in the morning and keeps you going when you’re tired and worn down?

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself
– George Bernard Shaw

Chapter 14: Live by Priority

Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.
– Alan Lakein

One line summary of the Chapter
- Purpose without priority is powerless.
Set priorities in line with your purpose.
Write down your Goals
Goal setting to the Now, is a way to create a powerful priority.
Visualizing the process—breaking a big goal down into the steps needed to achieve it
The further away a reward is in the future, the smaller the immediate motivation to achieve it.
- Break long term goals into short term goals to reward yourself.

Chapter 15: Live for Productivity

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

One line summary of the Chapter
- Time Blocking is a way to devote maximum time to your top priority.
Productive action transforms lives.
To be productive, design your day around your One Thing.
Once you’ve done your ONE Thing, you can devote the rest to everything else.
We must time block
- our time off,
- our ONE Thing,
- our planning time.
It is our job, to protect our time blocks. No one else will do it for you.
Resting is as important as working.

Efficiency is doing the thing right.
Effectiveness is doing the right thing
– Peter Drucker

Chapter 16: The Three Commitments

Achieving extraordinary results through time blocking requires three commitments.
- Follow the Path of Mastery
  - Always keep learning and improving
- Move from “E” to “P”
  - Entrepreneurial to Purposeful
  - Entrepreneurial approach is our natural approach. It’s seeing something we want with enthusiasm, energy, and our natural abilities
  - Important: All natural ability has a ceiling.
  - Purposeful approach is simply be willing to do whatever it takes to break the ceiling.
  - Purposeful approach asks, “I’m still committed to growing, so what are my options?”
  - You should continually look for better models and systems
- Live the Accountability Cycle
  - Take ownership of your outcomes.

Chapter 17: The Four Thieves

Four thieves of Productivity
- Inability to Say “No”
  - One “yes” must be defended over time by 1,000 “nos.”
  - You can’t please everyone, so don’t try.
  - The way to protect what you’ve said yes to (Your One Thing) and stay productive is to say no to anyone or anything that could derail you.
  - Master marketer Seth Godin says:
    - Say No
      - 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.
- Fear of Chaos
  - It can be managed by planning.
  - Focusing on ONE Thing has a guaranteed consequence: other things don’t get done
    - There are people and things, not part of your One Thing, but still matters. We need to manage them.
- Poor health habits
  - If you don’t take care of your body, where will you live?
  - Personal energy mismanagement is a silent thief of productivity.
  - High achievement and extraordinary results require big energy.
  - 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
- Environment doesn’t supportive of your goals
  - Your environment must support your goals
  - If it is not, we need to make it.
  - There is no silver bullet or one solution for each problem.
    - It could be problem with relation, family, finance, office, etc.
    - We need to figure out problems, one at a time, and its solution. It’s not easy, but it’s important.

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

If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”
– Albert Einstein

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to Overlook
– William James

Chapter 18: The Journey

To get through the hardest journey we need take only one step at a time, but we must keep on stepping.
– Chinese proverb

Any journey, not matter how long it is, starts with the first step.
All success starts within you.
We don’t have One thing in life. But 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.

Closing remark

I hope my notes from The One Thing book were helpful for you. If you are looking for the productivity, I’ll recommend you go through PowerUser series.