The One Thing Book Review – Find out Your One Thing

Book – The One Thing (Review)

Author – Gary Keller & Jay Papasan

Genre – Self-help

First Published – 2013

I am sure you must have found yourself in the situation at some time with too many things seeking your attention, and you feel overwhelmed. As a result, instead of focusing on your work, you get distracted by trivial things or social media.

Then this is the Book to read. One full of insight will help you with step filtering tasks and reaching one such that by doing that one thing, everything else will fall in place, as the Author calls the “Domino Effect.”

About the Authors –

Gary Keller – is an American best-selling author and entrepreneur. He founded the Keller Williams Real Estate franchise. He found these techniques while training agents at his company and wrote them in the Book The One Thing. He also wrote two more books about investment and real estate sales.

Jay Papasan – is an American writer and business executive. He is best known for co-authoring two books with Gary Keller, “The Millionaire Real Estate Investor” & “The One Thing.”

About the Book –

The one thing is narrowing our focus and finding out which activity will matter most for achieving desired results and then giving that one thing our undivided attention and blocking time.

The Book is divided into Three Parts: 1) clarify myths of productivity, 2) a simple path to productivity, and 3) unlock the possibilities within you for extraordinary results.

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PART I

The Lies We Believe Are Truth–

• Everything Matters equally – Everything seems equal when everything feels urgent and essential. As Henry David Thoreau said, ‘It’s not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is, what are you busy about?’

• Steve Uzzell rightly said, “Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time. We can undoubtedly multitask, but we can never multi-focus.

• A disciplined life – One doesn’t have to be a disciplined person. Discipline is only required to build habit. Build one good practice at a time. Success is sequential, not simultaneous.

• Willpower is always on will-call – Willpower is like the battery in a phone. We only have it much, so we must use it on activities that matter most and keep recharging occasionally.

• A balanced life – extraordinary results need attention and time; time on one thing means time away from another. This makes balance impossible, and one needs to make peace with it.

• Big is terrible – we often set limitations to our thinking and believe thinking too big or targeting too big will lead to disappointment. One will never know one’s limit unless one keeps pushing the boundaries.
  

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Part II

The Truth – Simple Path to Productivity –

This part deals with focus questions about what matters most, how to plan for it, and how to begin with one thing at a time. The Author explains that the question’s quality directly determines any answer’s quality.

• Ask big & specific questions, which leads to challenging our comfort zone and makes us think of out-of-the-box solutions. If you want the most from your answer, you must realize it lives outside your comfort zone.

• As quoted By Mart Twain – The secret to getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable ones and beginning on the first.

• Ask this question when setting goals and action for critical areas in your life like spiritual, personal, health, job, business, and finances – What’s the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

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Part III

Extraordinary Results – Unlocking the possibilities within you –

In this section, the Author explains how to put THE ONE THING into practice. Purpose – Priority – Productivity. Live with purpose. Live by priority. Live for productivity.

• The purpose on a bigger scale can be put as what we seek in life. For some, it is clear from the early stage, and some take it longer. However, this equally applies to Goals we set for days, weeks, years, and life. Our purpose places our priority, and our priority drives our productivity.

• Priority can be set simply once we know what we want to accomplish, and it also makes saying yes or no pretty comfortable. Goal setting from Some-day Goal to Right Now has been explained well.

• Productivity is often mistaken by business. As Henry David Thoreau said, “It’s not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is, what are you busy about?” So, we must ensure that everything we do aligns with our goal.

I have also created a video of a few quotes from the Book – I hope you like it. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel – Myread4change.

Conclusion –

I highly recommend this book to everyone to simplify the process, enjoy the process, and reach goals with less friction. As they say, happiness happens on the way to fulfillment.

If you like this Book, you will also enjoy and learn from the Book Essentialism by Greg Mckeown.

Please share your suggestions/feedback or any questions in the comments; I will happily answer them.

With Love

Muzammil