The One Thing

This is a really great book to start with if you're just getting into the self-help or personal productivity genre, or if you're genuinely trying to take things to the next level. It is pretty well laser focused about getting YOU laser-focused on exactly what you should be spending time on. There's an infinite amount of things you could be doing right this very moment. But not all of those things are equal in how they will effect your future. There may be a dozen things that you really need to work on to make an impact on your future, whether they be items that need to get done for work, family, home, or personal projects. But even among these dozen items there is more than likely one singular thing that is the absolute best way you should be spending your time to help you achieve the most important goal(s) in your life. It's really that simple. But how frequently do we get sidetracked by the “easier” thing to do. Or the thing that seems like it's more important. Or the thing your boss has asked you to do but which isn't congruent with your life goals. Or maybe there is something you could do that will massively help you with other projects down the line, making them easier or even possible.While the concept is simple, the execution is almost always harder. And sometimes you're going to have to make some choices that might seem odd to those who aren't on your same wavelength. But these are the things the most successful people are able to pick out and focus their energy on. Sometimes radical goals call for radical decisions and actions to back them up. This is a great place to start to get yourself thinking this way and then start implementing some changes in your life. This book is an excellent adjunct to [b:Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity 1633 Getting Things Done The Art of Stress-Free Productivity David Allen https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1312474060s/1633.jpg 5759] and [b:Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals 35138433 Your Best Year Ever A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals Michael Hyatt https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1514430789s/35138433.jpg 56463639].

If you are going to read only one non-fiction / productivity / self help book this year, choose this. Extremely well researched and written. Full of interesting diagrams that help you digest the information better. The ideas in this book are in a class of their own, in a crowded marketplace. Super highly recommended!

What I liked the most was that there isn't any bullshit in this book.

It irritated me that the author always wrote “the ONE Thing” and then you'd have to see that phrase like 10 times on the one page.

This book is about an idea that you have to concentrate on one thing to achieve the extraordinary results in any domain of your life. The author says that things don't matter equally and we have to choose what we'll do every day very carefully and not get distracted by all the other things that we could be doing instead.

This is a wide-spread idea, which one can read in many other self-help books. Gary Keller talks about the mastery mindset, Ericsson's research about 10,000 hours, the couple of success myths and much more. Therefore, it's nice to hear about those ideas once again, even though some of the stuff that he mentions are quite obvious.

I think that one of the main takeaways of this book is the following question:

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

It's a simple but powerful question. If one figures out the ONE thing that he or she will do in different areas of one's life with concentrated time blocks, according to Gary's clever metaphor, it can become the first domino in the stack of hundreds, which illustrates the baby steps that snowballs into the extraordinary results in the future.

Gary Keller devote the majority of the content of this book on focusing on single task in hand and avoid multi tasking and he provide plenty of evidence and study results on the matter. He strongly believes multi taking doomed to mediocre results and one of the most important factor for success is focusing on task in hand.

Identifying the tasks that matter the most and turning it in to habit is another aspect which have been covered within the book. Gary believes discipline is not matter as much as conventional wisdom suggests, but keep repeating the most important task regularly till they become habit is a great deal. Being able to make anything to habit can have halo effect and can making habit development easier and easier on long run.

In addition will power described as another key ingredient to be able to focus the most important tasks. He demonstrate a full study result done with small kids and the kids destiny in hindsight. Gray clarify that will power is finite and need to be managed efficiently, otherwise we ran out of will power on non important tasks.

Time boxing, success list rather than to do list, saying no to non important things and lots of other good advise are provided within the book. In my eyes if you have been through few other self improvement books you might find almost all the points within this book repetitive.

The wisdom found in this book is pretty common sense to be honest, but it was packaged in a way that is easy to understand.

Failed to inspire me. There are better introductions to focused work (Deep Work by Cal Newport is my favorite. Essentialism was pretty good too.)

A must read for anyone wanting to achieve extraordinary results!