The One Thing Book Review | 27 Key Takeaways
In this article and video, I’ll share some of my favorite takeaways from The One Thing by Gary Keller.
What is the most important thing that you should do every day to find success? Emails? Social Media? Education? Well, that’s exactly the question that the book The One Thing by Gary Keller addresses. If you've ever wanted to read this book, or if you're looking for a few quick ways to improve your life, you've come to the right place. The One Thing is an incredible book and will help enhance your productivity, time-management, and better your character.
The One Thing Book Review Video (27 Key Takeaways)
Below is a video covering 27 of our favorite takeaways from the book ‘The One Thing’.
Download the Free PDF Study Guide
In the book summary video, I talk about a free PDF Study Guide that you can download to help you find the most important areas of your life. You can download The One Thing study guide by clicking the button below.
The One Thing Book Summary | 27 Takeaways
Want to see a full list of all of the takeaways from The One Thing? Here's a full breakdown of the list.
1. Ask The Focusing Question
How much time in your life is spent doing things that are truly helpful for your own personal goals at work and home? If you're anything like me, you likely spend much more time on 'busy' work than things that are significantly helping your life.
That's where the book comes into play...
The philosophy of The One Thing encourages readers to find the true 'One Thing' that you should do every day, focus 100% on that thing (for about 3 hours), and move on to the rest of the busy work associated with life. But how are we to find that thing? Do we go with our gut? or ask a magic 8 ball? Nah... just use the focusing question.
This is the Focusing Question from The One Thing:
What's the one thing you can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary? - The Focusing Question
By asking yourself this question every day (at the start of the day) you will empower yourself to do extraordinary things.
Question:
What's the one thing you can do today such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?
2. Not All Things Matter Equally
You have the power to do just about anything on any given day of your life. For example, want to go to Fiji today? No problem. Whip out the credit card and pack your bags.
Sick of your boss? Send them a glitter bomb and fill their car with pingpong balls.
But just because you could do something, doesn't mean you should do something.
The same is true on a smaller scale in day-to-day life. When it comes to success, it's usually best to 'go small' and focus on the things you truly should be doing by ignoring all the things you could do. By narrowing your focus you increase your potential for success.
My favorite exercise on this topic comes from Warren Buffet, he encourages you to write out a list of the top 20 things that you want to do with your life. One you have 20 things listed cross out all but the five most important things. Now, make a commitment to yourself to ignore all of the crossed out items on your list, or you run the risk of missing out on your most important priorities.
Energy and willpower are finite resources. As Keller says in the book "when you spread out, you spread thin."
Question:
What is one unimportant thing that you have been spending too much time on?
3. The Domino Effect
In the same way it would be unwise (and probably unsafe) to get off your couch and try to run a marathon today, it is equally problematic to try to achieve a monumental goal without giving yourself the momentum gained from smaller wins. In the book, Keller uses dominos to illustrate this point.
A single domino has the power to knock down a domino 50% larger and so on. As a result, after about 18 dominos you could knock down a domino the size of the leaning tower of pisa, the 23rd and you knock down the Eiffel tower, the 31st and you knock down Mount Everest, and 57 you've successfully spanned the distance between the earth and the moon.
The same is true with your most ambitious goals. Instead of shooting for the moon, try knocking down the next ambitious (but manageable) task in front of you that will help you move in the right direction.
Question:
How can you break down your moon-shot goal into something more manageable?
4. Importance Isn't Always Connected with Results
We've all heard that Star Wars makes far more money from merchandise than movie tickets. While it may seem like 'The One Thing' that Disney should focus on is selling toys, it's actually the movies that enable toys to happen in the first place. So Disney's 'One Thing' is movies.
This metaphor also applies to productivity. While you may see the most financial results when you work longer hours, your sleep patterns may actually be the difference between effective and ineffective work hours. As a result, your sleep should be prioritized over working long hours. By finding the true, hidden secret behind your productivity, you will be able to know where you should focus your time and attention.
Question:
What is the hidden thing you must prioritize to ensure success in work?
What is the hidden thing you must prioritize to ensure success in your significant relationships?
What is the hidden thing you must prioritize to ensure success in health?
What is the hidden thing you must prioritize to ensure success in spiritual health?
5. Passion Converts to Skill
How do people gain world-class skills? Through passionately improving every single day.
Passion enables you to fall in love with the process of learning and developing your skills. If you aren't passionate about something, you'll find it very challenging to overcome the inevitable obstacles that occur on your way to mastery.
Question:
What are you passionate about?
How are you nurturing your skills in this passion?
Don’t you dare touch that mouse…
6. That's Not How You Boil Frogs
Our minds are molded by the stories we accept to be true. This is true for everything from politics and religion, to relationships and success. However, it can be easy to accept common wisdom without ever questioning whether the story or lesson is even true. For example, have you ever heard the metaphor that a frog will stay in boiling water if you just up the temperature one degree at a time? It's not true.
In the words of Mark Twain:
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble, it's what you know for sure that just ain't so. - Mark Twain
False stories can have disastrous consequences if the morals of the story are acted upon. For example, you may have been inspired by the story of Cortes telling his men to 'burn their boats' when they landed in Veracruz in 1519. This action supposedly inspired his men to know the consequences of their mission were success or death.
Business leaders use this story over and over to illustrate the importance of going 'all in' on a project.
However, as you probably guessed, this story is false. But more importantly, those who believe the story might subconsciously believe a backup plan is cowardly or unwise for success. But that is totally untrue. As a result, this false story has the power to possibly ruin someone's life.
Question the stories you consume, because they will shape your actions and identity.
Question:
What's a common lie that you recently found out to be false?
7. The Squeeky Wheel Doesn't Always Need the Grease
The tasks that are the most urgent are rarely the tasks that are the most important for your success. Many times, it's the tasks that get pushed to the back-burner that are actually more crucial for success.
Maybe it's finally setting your website live? or ironing out your content calendar?
If you only put out fires, there will never be enough time for building.
Question:
What "squeeky wheels" call your attention away?
8. The Pareto Principle
Almost all results in life (money, success, relationships) follow the 80/20 rule, also known as Pareto’s principle. The Pareto Principle is simply this— 80% of results come from 20% of actions. As a result, the key to success in any field is to simply deduce which 20% of actions you should focus on.
For example, if you learn to master the most essential 20% of cooking techniques, you will be able to cook about 80% as well as a seasoned celebrity chef.
In life, inequality of effort to results is found in basically everything you do.
Question:
What are the most important 20% of tasks for your success?
9. Multitasking is a Lie
Multitasking is completely a myth. It is actually biologically impossible to fully do two things at once. In fact, in the book, Keller goes so far as to say that high multitaskers are suckers for irrelevancy.
Countless studies have shown that people who multitask, yield fewer results than people who focus on a single task at a time.
The average worker is interrupted every 11 minutes and spends about a third of their working day recovering from distractions. However, Distractions are inevitable, so the next time you get distracted, don't beat yourself up, just acknowledge the distraction and start to focus again.
Pro Tip: Do yourself a favor and get some noise-canceling headphones.
Questions:
What things do you often multitask?
Have you ever dropped something because of multitasking?
10. Turn Habits Into Your Goals
Like we said in our overview of Atomic Habits, a habit is far more powerful than a number-based goal. In fact, Keller argues that success should be analyzed by the number of good habits that were generated, rather than simply a number.
As a result, all you need to be truly successful is just enough discipline to create a good habit.
However, some people seem like they are discipline superstars. You know the type... they eat perfectly, go the gym six days a week, read a book a week, floss three times a day, and sleep 10 hours a night. Are these types of people some sort of disciplined superhero? Not really...
Keller talks about how, in general, everyone has about the same amount of willpower to do challenging tasks. However, those who develop habits around challenging tasks (working out, education, sales calls, etc.) are often the ones who succeed the most in the long run.
So fit Gary from down the block isn't better than you, he just has better habits.
Question:
What are habits in your life that are leading to success?
11. Willpower Must Be Refueled
Just like gas in your car, your brain only has a finite amount of willpower that it can utilize before it needs to be recharged. Many people try to refuel their willpower buckets by watching TV or scrolling through social media, but in Keller's experience, the secret to gaining more willpower is often just increasing your intake of complex carbs and proteins.
In fact, one study found that students who were given Kool-Aid with fake sugar made 50% more mistakes than students who had real sugar. Even more, judges are more likely to authorize parole if they just had a meal.
What does this mean? Well, simply put. If you want to optimize your environment for high achievement and compassion towards others, you should have a snack.
Question:
What are your go-to healthy snacks?
12. Willpower Is Easily Removed From Your Life
As you already know, willpower is often slowly sucked from your brain throughout the day. In fact, Keller identifies a few things that can easily take willpower away:
New Behaviors
Distractions
Resisting Temptation
Suppressing Emotion
Restraining Aggression
Suppressing Impulses
Taking a Test
Impressing Others
Coping with Fear
Long-Term over Short-Term Rewards
All of these 'willpower vacuums' will slowly drain away your willpower throughout the day.
It would be basically impossible to avoid all of the 'willpower vacuums' listed above. They are an inevitable part of life.
As a result, Keller recommends that you use the mornings to get your most important tasks done. Focus all of your willpower on your most important work.
Question:
What things consistently drain your willpower?
Is it possible to transition some of these things to your afternoon?
13. Balance is Overrated
If you look at the most successful and impactful people in history 'balance' is unlikely a defining characteristic. Rather, it is in the extremes that truly amazing things happen.
To Keller, purpose, meaning, and significance are far better for determining the success of your life than balance. Only extreme actions can produce extreme results.
Did Walt Disney work normal hours? Nope.
Did Michael Jordan take weekends off? Probably not.
Success takes sacrifice, not balance.
Question:
What extreme places are you willing to go to achieve success?
14. Your Work is Like a Rubber Ball
Now that we've abandoned balance, it's time to devote our life to our work... right? Not exactly.
One of the most impactful metaphors in the book is Keller's description of life being a juggling act. At any time you are juggling family, health, friends, integrity, and work, all of which must be routinely maintained and nurtured.
Family, health, friends, and integrity can be compared to a glass ball. If you drop them, it can shatter and possibly never be restored. This is why it is vital to regularly maintain and protect these vital areas.
However, work is more like a rubber ball. If you 'drop the ball' at work, you might possibly get fired. But statistically, you will be back on your feet in very little time. In fact, many times messing up at one job can lead to more success in another.
So Keller's advice is simple, in your personal life, invest for the short term. Go to events, call people on the phone, and grow your spiritual health.
At work, invest in the long term. Learn the skills and proficiencies you need to succeed over the long haul. If you get fired for caring for your family too much, a new opportunity will likely pop up.
That's not to say you shouldn't have boundaries. Keller recommends communicating priorities with your family. If you are at work, work. If you are resting or at home, be at home.
Question:
Do you separate work time from playtime?
15. Big is Not Bad
We have been trained by media to believe that big thinking is bad. Big corporations are evil. Big movements are misguided. Big houses are wasteful... you get the idea.
The book shares that when we think big is bad, small thinking rules.
How many ships didn't sail because people were sacred that the earth was flat? How much progress was stunted because we believed man shouldn't breath underwater or fly in the air?
The size of your thinking, is in direct proportion to the size of your success.
And the things that got you to where you are today, won't get you to where you want to go next.
So don't be afraid of thinking big, be afraid of thinking too small.
Question:
What mediocre results have you become comfortable with?
16. Action is Better Than Strategy
Nobody cares about the movie you wish you could shoot, the book you would write if only you had inspiration, or the business you should create but are just too busy. What matters is what you can do right now.
Everybody has good ideas. But almost nobody has the follow-through to make them happen.
Question:
What can you do right now to help you achieve your goals?
Notion pages can pop up in Google!
17. The Focusing Question in All of Life
The Focusing Question extends beyond just your work. It can also extend to other important categories of life like health, friendships, rest, and personal development.
Just add the category and your timeline to the question.
So for example,
What's the one thing that I can do for my health this week such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?
or
What's the one thing that I can to do improve my relationship this year such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?
There's a study guide that you can fill out and download below this video that can help you get started on some of these focusing questions for your life.
18. Get There First
It's often the people who get there first, who enjoy the majority of the rewards with little or no competitors.
It's important to always be innovating so you can be first to market with your specific product or service. Those who are first will receive the majority of the financial rewards.
This is why we say I need a 'Kleenex' or I would like to drink a 'coke'. These are both brand names, but because they were the first to mass-market their product, they receive the majority of the sales even today.
If you can't be first, then get more specific. For example, if you want to be a business coach. Don't just focus on being a generic business coach because there are literally thousands of business coaches out there. Instead, become more specific until you find a niche that isn't very competitive, like Business Coaches for Food Delivery services.
By getting more specific, you can allow yourself to be the first to serve a specific niche.
Question:
What niche are you trying to be first in?
19. Vacation
Where do you want to go on vacation? A beach in Fiji? A volcano in Iceland? Most successful people prioritize vacations so they can rest from their work. The book advises you to take time at the beginning of your year to plan your vacations. By giving yourself extended weekends and long vacations, you will actually be far more productive in the long-run.
Pick vacations that can be both fun, inspiring, and relaxing.
Everything needs rest to function better, and that includes you.
Question:
What vacations or rest do you have planned for yourself?
20. Makers vs Managers
There are essentially two different types of schedules you can follow in your workday, a maker schedule and a manager schedule.
A maker schedule is spent focusing on making something. This is where you can get into flow states and really zone in on performing your tasks and actions.
A manager schedule is spent in meetings, conversations, and quickly switching between different tasks.
Every creative professional needs to learn the right balance of making and managing. If you only make, your business and employees can quickly become disorganized and demotivated.
If you just focus on managing, the quality and quantity of the work you produce will soon slip away.
In the book, the authors recommend blocking some time with your team for making and managing. Your entire organization should try to get on the same schedule. So for example, if you want to run your company like Y-Combinator, one of the world's most successful business incubators, you may want to focus on making for the first part of your day, [244] and then managing in the afternoons.
Question:
When do you schedule time to make something?
When do you schedule time to manage something?
21. The Ceiling is Higher
Are you trying to do the best you can do, or to do the best that can be done?
In a world that puts an over-emphasis on self-actualization, it can be easy to get comfortable with doing your best, even if your best work could be improved with new strategies or collaborators.
If you find yourself becoming stagnant or reaching your creative limits, look around for new ways to improve your work.
Go to YouTube and find inspiring channels, follow your favorite influencers in your niche, go to conferences, or attend a local meetup.
As the book says, If you ask an entrepreneur to chop down a tree and they will start chopping the wood with an axe, but a purposeful person will look for a chainsaw.
Which brings us to our next takeaway...
22. Find a Coach
Michael Phelps has a coach. Tiger Woods has a coach. Serena Williams has a coach. If people who are at the very top of their game need a coach, so do you.
No matter what your goal is, you can benefit from having a coach who specializes in your area of expertise. Shelby and I coach entrepreneurs, but we also have a coach that helps us with our business.
You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone with extraordinary results who doesn't have a coach.
Question:
Do you have a coach in your life?
23. Busyness Keeps You From Doing Good
More than anything, your busy schedule will prevent you from doing the good you want to see in the world.
The best example of this concept comes from an experiment conducted at a religious seminary.
Theology students were asked to give a talk about the good samaritan story from the bible. The story is about a samaritan who provides care for the needs of an injured man after he was passed over by the religious teachers.
The experiment asked the students to wait in one building and then walk over to teach their lesson in another building. However, on the path to the lecture building, [275] the experimenters staged a person on the ground in need of help.
From the waiting room a third of the students in the waiting room were told, 'You are late for your talk'. and they hurried away.
Another third, were told 'You have a few minutes, but you should head on over anyways'. They briskly walked to the building.
And another group wasn't rushed at all. They had plenty of time to spare.
And the results were stunning.
Despite literally giving a talk about the importance of helping those in need. Researchers found that only 10% of the students from the high-hurry group offered some help to the victim. 45% in the medium hurry group offered help, and 63% in the low-hurry group offered help.
What does this mean to us? Well, simply put, your ethical behavior and actions are correlated to the busyness of your schedule. If you want to do good work, make an impact, and truly care for the people you serve, you probably need to clear up your schedule.
Question:
Does your schedule allow you to help others?
24. Say No
As someone who desires to make an impact with your life, you must learn to say NO far more than you say Yes. Your ability to say 'NO' will protect your dreams from being split apart by the sea of small requests that flood your inbox.
One of the most prolific "No" people in history was Steve Jobs. When Steve rejoined Apple in 1997 the company was creating over 350 products. Steve immediately forced the company to focus exclusively on only 10 products.
The result? Well, since 1997 Apple is now 840x more valuable as a company and by every measure has changed the world.
So if you want to make an impact, narrow your focus and say no.
In the words of Steve, 'Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things'.
Question:
What do you need to say No to?
25. Feed the Right Wolf
Your habits, environment, and friends will determine who you become. If your friends are judgemental and rude, you're probably going to become judgemental and rude. [296] If your home is a cluttered mess, your mind might also be a cluttered mess.
Don't just let life happen to you, be intentional about the things you do, the people you hang out with, and the content you consume.
There's an old Cherokee story about a grandfather talking to his grandson. In the story the grandfather says that inside each one of us are two wolves who are fighting each other.
One wolf is evil, and full of anger, envy, jealousy, greed, and ego.
The other is a good wolf, full of joy, peace, love, and compassion.
The grandson asks 'Which wolf wins the fight?"
And the grandfather simply replies, "The one that you feed."
This story helps us to remember that we must intentionally nurture our habits, homes, and relationships to help us become the people we've always wanted to be.
Question:
Which wolf are you feed more?
26. Find People Who Have Already Gone Down This Road
You may think that your work is original and new, but the truth is there are probably thousands of successful people that have already traveled down a similar career path.
Whether you're trying to improve your health, launch a business, or even open a theme park, you can learn from the successes and failures of others.
An easy thing to do is simply email or contact people who are where you want to go.
You can also read biographies of people who you admire or listen to interviews with people you want to be like. If you run into a difficult roadblock on your journey to success, look to others to help you get to where you want to go.
Question:
What historical person do you like learning from?
What living person is a hero that you want to be like?
27. The Huge Purpose Question
The One Thing's biggest encouragement comes in the form of a big question that you can ask yourself right now. So get yourself ready, take a deep breath, and answer this question:
What is the one thing in my life that I can do for me and for the world, such that by doing it, everything in life would be easier or unnecessary?
The answer to this question might change your life.
You can download a free workbook with all of the questions listed in this video by clicking the link below.
Like this Article and Video?
We also cover many tips for productivity and business here on our blog and YouTube channel.
Create Your Own Thriving Business
If you've ever wanted to launch an online business from scratch using easy-to-use tools, check out The Curious Millionaire. Our online adventure course shows you how to test and launch a thriving modern business using the latest tools and techniques.
Thank you so much for joining us for this productivity journey through, “The One Thing.” If there is a specific Book Summaries you'd like us to cover in the future please feel free to ask us below. Also, if you have any other takeaways from, “The One Thing,” that you'd like to share, please let us hear about them below.
Best of luck on all your putting these takeaways into practice!
