The One Thing – Gary Keller

What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

There will always be just a few things that matter more than the rest, and out of those, one will matter most.

The ONE Thing is the best approach to getting what you want.

• Success is a result of narrowing your concentration to one thing.
• Success is built sequentially, one thing at a time.
• Not everything matters equally.
• Multitasking is a lie.
• Discipline is a result of habit.
• Willpower is a finite resource.
• Big is bad is a lie.

A Disciplined Life

Success is actually a short race—a sprint fueled by discipline that lasts just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.

When you discipline yourself, you’re essentially training yourself to act in a specific way. Stay with this long enough, and it becomes routine—in other words, a habit.

You can become successful with less discipline than you think, for one simple reason: success is about doing the right thing, not about doing everything right

The trick to success is to choose the right habit and bring just enough discipline to establish it.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answer.

The Four Thieves

The Four Thieves of Productivity

• Inability to Say “No”
• Fear of Chaos 
• Poor Health Habits 
• Environment Doesn’t Support Your Goals

Your environment must support your goals.

For you to achieve extraordinary results, the people surrounding you and your physical surroundings must support your goals.

No one succeeds alone, and no one fails alone. Pay attention to the people around you.

The things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest

Handful Of Things

To achieve an extraordinary result, you must choose what matters most and give it all the time it demands.

Achievement and abundance show up because they’re the natural outcomes of doing the right things with no limits attached.

The key to success isn’t in all the things we   but in the handful of things we do well.

Multitasking Is A Lie

When you try to do two things at once, you either can’t or won’t do either well.

You can do two things at once, but you can’t focus effectively on two things at once.

Every time you try to do two or more things at once, you’re simply dividing up our focus and dumbing down all of the outcomes in the process.

The Focusing Question

Answers come from questions, and the quality of any answer is directly determined by the quality of the question. Ask the wrong question, get the wrong answer. Ask the right question and get the right answer. Ask the most powerful question possible, and the answer can be life-altering.

The Focusing Question collapses all possible questions into one: “What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

What Matters Most; Just Do It

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 being the best you can be.

A life worth living might be measured in many ways, but the one way that stands above all others is living a life of no regrets.

When you know what matters most, everything makes sense. When you don’t know what matters most, anything makes sense.

The ONE Thing

It’s realizing that extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus.

You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects.

Not Everything Matters Equally

• When everything feels urgent and important, everything seems equal. We become active and busy, but this doesn’t actually move us any closer to success. Activity is often unrelated to productivity, and busyness rarely takes care of business.
• Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority.

Live with Purpose

Our purpose sets our priorities, and our priorities determine the productivity our actions produce.

Who we are and where we want to go determine what we do and what we accomplish.

How circumstances affect us depends on how we interpret them as they relate to our lives.

The Three Commitments

Achieving extraordinary results through time blocking requires three commitments.

• First, you must adopt the mindset of someone seeking mastery.
• Second, you must continually seek the very best ways of doing things.
• And last, you must be willing to be held accountable to doing everything you can to achieve your ONE Thing.

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