Book Review : The One Thing: The surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results

the_one_thingI am bit embarrassed to tell you that I am not really good book reader. I don’t read much books and when I do, it takes long time to finish them.

I had the possibility to read “the ONE thing: the surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results“.

Despite being lousy book reader I did read the book with one go. We were traveling in Vienna, Austria and I used all waiting time to read this book.

I will read books with excitement when I get well written and interesting books in my hands 😉

“The ONE thing” is written by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.

Gary Keller is chairman of the board and cofounder of Keller Williams Inc. Which is the #1 real estate company in United States.

Jay is the editor at HarperCollins Publishers and co author of Gary’s books. He is frequent speaker and corporate trainer.

The book is available in Amazon.

If you are chasing two rabbits, you won’t catch either one

What is “the one thing”? What is this book all about?

“One thing” is reference to an idea. Everyone should pick one thing and focus completely to the one thing only.

Michael Phelps selected swimming and practiced six hours every day. And he became the most successful swimmer and most decorated Olympian of all time with 22 medals.

Steve Jobs reduced number of Apples products when he rejoined Apple and rest is history we all know.

Pick one talent, one skill and start building your success on top of your ONE thing.

What is the one thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

So – that is the one thing. It means extreme focus and a lot of work – one important thing at a time.

Authors suggest that you should use focusing question: “What is the one thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” Answering the question and working with the items through focusing question will cause domino effect which will bring you success.

After you have picked your one thing, your number one priority should be protecting the time you use to work with your ONE thing. You should reserve four hours of non-interrupted time from your day only to work with your ONE thing.

Can your write a book about one idea? YES you can.

The flow of the book is extremely good. It is very readable and well written with good examples and stories to justify authors idea. It has several drawings that nicely fill the gaps and visualize the written text.

Every chapter ends with summary of big ideas.

Evil minded and cynical reader would probably say that “Do you need book for that? It is too simple and too obvious.”

Most productivity advises are obvious and simple. We just don’t notice them or follow them.

..But the book is not only about that one thing. It is everything around the one thing. It questions many of the common and well accepted productivity beliefs. The books first chapter starts with six productivity lies, like multi-tasking or task lists, which author rips in pieces.

I enjoyed very much reading it. It raised many thoughts about success and failure.

I believe what the book says. If you would follow the instructions I am sure it would bring success. The difficult part is the four hours of work with your one thing and in that the writers won’t help much.

The book really made me think and that is what I love.

Gary’s view of to-do-lists is interesting.

How lists are serving the productivity business. All apps and software are based on different kind of lists… lists are filled with low priority and unnecessary tasks. .. We are stuck with the lists, crossing done tasks over without moving closer to our goals or success.

After reading the book I have worked to get rid of my to-do-list and I tried hard to find ONE thing every day that would bring me closer to my success. Short term or long-term. I have asked the focusing question a lot to find the most important tasks and items for me and for my team.

You will hear of my successes and failures later.

I highly recommend reading it. Go and buy it from Amazon. 😉

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  • https://TeodoraMarie.com/ Teodora Marie

    interesting. Focusing has always been a problem for me. Have to read that book …

  • Martin

    What do you mean “The difficult part is the four hours of work with your one thing and in that the writers won’t help much.”

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