The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan – Book Review

The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan is a self help book about how to achieve your goals by prioritizing what you choose to work or focus on each day.

As a productivity consultant, the concepts in this book are really at the core of how I recommend going about tunneling through the clutter of everyday life and being able to find focus on what matters most. It has a permanent spot on my “shelf” of organizing books (on my Kindle). And I often gift this book to others because it is that good.

As you can guess from the title – the book is about improving your productivity by finding and focusing on that ONE thing in your life that will have the biggest impact. Of course, at some deep level, we all know this – and yet it is really hard for us to make it happen.

This book, The ONE Thing, not only talks about why it is important to focus on that one thing, but it also gives us strategies to help identify what that one thing is and also how to manage all of the other things that we have to do simultaneously in life. You know – those other things that always seem to pull us way off course.

Before I dive into my review – you can learn more about The ONE Thing on Amazon here. I have also included it in my favorite Organizing Tools and Resources section here.

An Example

Let me start with an example from my own life that happened just now.

One of the core concepts in The ONE thing is prioritizing. Some tasks are more important than others because the results of those tasks will have a bigger impact on your goals.

Yet it is very tempting to work on tasks that you just want to get out of the way or perhaps that you enjoy more than others – even though you know that the time you put in is not proportionate to what you will get out.

For my business I am a one person show. And the task that I assigned to myself today was to update this post about The ONE Thing. This post is very important because it really ties in to the purpose of my blog and business. And I think the information in this book will be very useful to those of you that are searching for clarity and struggling with productivity.

But when I sat down at my desk this morning, did I jump right in to composing this post? No. Instead, I tweaked my logo and messed around with my website design a bit – even though I knew better. I know myself, and I could spend hours on web design – I love playing around with it. But I also know that you are not here to see a pretty logo. So, I gave myself a little playtime and then hunkered down to the task at hand.

As I continue to practice the concepts in The ONE Thing, I am hoping to hone and develop the habits that I need to get right down to business and cut away the “busy-ness”.

If you too are easily distracted by things that you would rather do instead of things that you need to do, this book is for you.

Are You Focusing on Your ONE Important Thing?

Life is busy. It often feels like an endless treadmill. You make it through one day. Sleep. Rinse and repeat. And while you manage to get things done, getting ahead seems just out of reach.

Why is it that some people accomplish so much in the 24 hours a day that they are given and others can just barely keep their head above the water? The answer, it seems, is not to do more but to drill down and go small.

It all comes down to one simple but powerful question:

What is the ONE thing that you can do this (day, week, month, year) that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?

There are a lot of components to that question and the authors delve deep into these parts throughout the rest of the book.

It all boils down to the fact that while we are always busy doing things – we are not necessarily choosing the things that matter most – the actions that will give us the biggest bang for our buck so to speak.

So, the obvious route would be to dream big, set a goal, and drill down the steps to get there into bite sized chunks.

In theory, it sounds super easy – if we only had one goal or one area of life that commands our attention.

But we are all bombarded by the reality of it. Our hopes, dreams, and goals are one thing – but we also have other obligations: family, health, work, social, and more.

In some cases, there is so much clutter in our minds that even identifying what our ONE thing is, is confusing.

What I love about the book The ONE Thing, is that the authors don’t assume that you live in a perfect world. They recognize all the directions that people are pulled into and they give solid strategies that you can use to plot your course and stay on track.

Setting Your Priorities

According to the authors, there are six lies that keep you from achieving success:

1. everything matters equally
2. multitasking
3. discipline
4. willpower
5. having balanced life
6. big is bad

This quote from the book really hit home for me:

When everything feels urgent everything seems equal.

The point being that it is imperative that we look at all the things we have to and prioritize.

The authors go into detail about Pareto’s Principle. This is the theory that a disproportionately small amount of effort leads to a majority of the results. You may have heard it referred to as the 80/20 Rule as well.

As an aside: if you are a student here is an interesting way to apply Pareto’s Principle to studying for exams – you could really apply this other aspects of life too.

Following this theory, a lot of what you do day in and day out doesn’t really move the needle on your big goals.

So, how do you pinpoint where you should be spending your time? The authors provide many ideas in the book but one that I really like is making a “success” list instead of a to do list.

As you know, I am a big fan of making lists to stay organized – you can read my review of Paula Rizzo’s book Listful Thinking here – and authors of The ONE Thing take this concept a step further. Take your main brain dump to do list and go over it with a fine tooth comb. Decide which activities are worth your time – and based on the overarching question, which items (when completed) would make everything else easier or unnecessary?

I am not going to go into all of the other lies in this book review but they are all valid and all too common thieves of time. But one that I do want to touch on is the “lie” of a balanced life.

Haven’t we been taught that work/life balance is the key to happiness? It’s the thing we all strive for but somehow never quite achieve. And along comes Keller and Papasan in The ONE Thing telling us that balance is impossible. And it makes sense! When you spend time on one thing, you are not spending time on everything else – and that is ok.

The key, it seems, is knowing how much time you need to spend on your ONE thing so that you can have the expectation to accomplish it and then using the rest of your time wisely on the other priorities in your life. They call it counterbalancing – and it is kind of freeing actually.

Later on in the book they talk about how chaos will happen in other parts of your life when you are focused on your ONE thing, and that that is ok too. For me, that was enlightening because I am always seeking perfection in everything and there are some less important areas where settling for good enough is just fine.

Finding Your Success

The theme throughout the book is focusing on one thing at a time to help you succeed – and it may seem too large of a concept for wherever you are in life right now. Maybe you are not out to change the world.

However, this concept is relevant to everyone. Success is defined on your terms. Your goal might be something as simple as getting healthy meals on the table every night – or cleaning out the basement.

Whatever your end game, the point is that you want to ultimately get there. Getting there quickly and efficiently will help to reduce stress, give you a sense of accomplishment, and make room in your life for new goals.

You can apply this approach to all areas of your life – personal, social, work, finances, home, health, an so much more.

The Actual How to Set Goals Using The ONE Thing

Part three of book brings it all together with a drill down where you start with your long term goals and work your way back to the one thing that you should be doing right now.

This will bring you one step closer to your desired result.

I almost skimmed over parts of this section because I thought I had it down by this time and it seemed a little repetetive. But, on second thought, I slowly read through the exercise and I thought – wow! – this is such a simple way to create a roadmap for myself on what tasks I should work on every day to get to my month and year goals.

And by creating this outline, I know when I go off track or when a task takes longer than anticipated. This gives me the feedback that I need to adjust my timeline and my expectations accordingly. It also helps me to see if I can do certain things differently, perhaps I need to adjust my focus instead.

My Takeaway from the Book – The ONE Thing

At the end of the book the authors present a philosophical discussion about looking back on life. It turns out that most regrets stem from things that we didn’t do or didn’t attempt. And often, we don’t do things because we didn’t have the time which translates to we spent our time on things that weren’t that important.

You can never change the past but the present is in your hands and if you use it wisely you can shape your future.

I think the book The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan is core reading for people that want more out of life and are looking for actionable advice on how to get there.

Be sure to visit my list of favorite productivity and organization books here. And you may also be interested in my Ultimate Guide to Personal Productivity where I take many of the concepts in The ONE Thing and outline a way to put them into action.