The One Thing

Lies we tell ourselves: “I just have too much that has to be done.” “I’ll get more done by doing things at the same time.” “I need to be a more disciplined person.” “I need more balance in my life.” “Maybe I shouldn’t dream so big.”

 

The truth: Not everything matters equally, and success isn’t a game won by whoever does the most. Yet that is exactly how most play it on a daily basis.

 

An eye for the essential. They pause just long enough to decide what matters and then allow what matters to drive their day. To-do lists inherently lack the intent of success. In fact, most to-do lists are actually just survival lists—getting you through your day and your life, but not making each day a stepping-stone for the next so that you sequentially build a successful life.

 

Paretto squared: go even smaller by finding the vital few of the vital few.

 

The One insight: There will always be just a few things that matter more than the rest, and out of those, one will matter most. Internalizing this concept is like being handed a magic compass.

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

A lot of our physical actions, like breathing, are being directed from a different part of our brain than where focus comes from. As a result, there’s no channel conflict.

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

There is just so much brain capability at any one time. Divide it up as much as you want, but you’ll pay a price in time and effectiveness.

Multitaskers experience more life-reducing, happiness-squelching stress.

 

Even an idle phone conversation when driving takes a 40 percent bite out of your focus and, surprisingly, can have the same effect as being drunk.

Why would we ever tolerate multitasking when we’re doing our most important work?

“The people we live with and work with on a daily basis deserve our full attention. When we give people segmented attention, piecemeal time, switching back and forth, the switching cost is higher than just the time involved. We end up damaging relationships.”

Habits: Success is actually a short race—a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over. When we know something that needs to be done but isn’t currently getting done, we often say, “I just need more discipline.” Actually, we need the habit of doing it. And we need just enough discipline to build the habit.

This makes them seem “disciplined” when actually they’re not. No one is.

The trick to success is to choose the right habit and bring just enough discipline to establish it. That’s it. That’s all the discipline you need.

Simplified life: The payoff from developing the right habit is pretty obvious. It gets you the success you’re searching for. What sometimes gets overlooked, however, is an amazing windfall: it also simplifies your life.

Don’t be a disciplined person. Be a person of powerful habits and use selected discipline to develop them.

You don’t have to seek out success. Harness the power of selected discipline to build the right habit, and extraordinary results will find you.

When we tie our success to our willpower without understanding what that really means, we set ourselves up for failure.

Willpower is a timing issue. When you have your will, you get your way.

You make doing what matters most a priority when your willpower is its highest. 

Balance: The quest for balance between work and life, as we’ve come to think of it, isn’t just a losing proposition; it’s a hurtful, destructive one.”

balance is lived practically as a verb.

Purpose, meaning, significance—these are what make a successful life.

Working for someone else: At first, most people worked according to their needs and ambitions. The blacksmith didn’t have to stay at the forge until 5 P.M.; he could go home when the horse’s feet were shod. Then 19th-century industrialization saw for the first time large numbers working for someone else.

we went from a family unit with a breadwinner and a homemaker to one with two breadwinners and no homemaker.

Counterbalance: Replace the word “balance” with “counterbalance” and what you experience makes sense.

 Counterbalancing done well gives the illusion of balance. … vibrating rapidly, making minute adjustments for balance. 

The idea of counterbalancing is that you never go so far that you can’t find your way back or stay so long that there is nothing waiting for you when you return.

Awareness: In your personal world, awareness is the essential ingredient. Awareness of your spirit and body, awareness of your family and friends, awareness of your personal needs—none of these can be sacrificed if you intend to “have a life,” so you can never forsake them for work or one for the other.

“Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you’re keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls—family, health, friends, integrity—are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.”

To be able to address your priorities outside of work, be clear about your most important work priority so you can get it done. Then go home and be clear about your priorities there so you can get back to work.

When you’re supposed to be working, work, and when you’re supposed to be playing, play.

Counterbalance your work bucket. View work as involving a skill or knowledge that must be mastered. This will cause you to give disproportionate time to your ONE Thing and will throw the rest of your work day, week, month, and year continually out of balance.

Your work life is divided into two distinct areas—what matters most and everything else.

You will have to take what matters to the extremes and be okay with what happens to the rest. Professional success requires it.

Big is bad is a lie. It’s quite possibly the worst lie of all, for if you fear big success, you’ll either avoid it or sabotage your efforts to achieve it.

Mention big with achievement and their first thoughts are hard, complicated, and time-consuming. Difficult to get there and complex once you do pretty much sums up their views. Overwhelming and intimidating

fear that big success brings crushing pressure and stress, that the pursuit of it robs them of not only time with family and friends but eventually their health.

Historically, we’ve done a remarkably poor job of estimating our limits.

No one knows their ultimate ceiling for achievement, so worrying about it is a waste of time.

Go big. Why? Because you wouldn’t want to limit yourself.

allow yourself to accept that big is about who you can become,

the only actions that become springboards to succeeding big are those informed by big thinking to begin with.

Thinking informs actions and actions determine outcomes.

Everyone has the same amount of time, and hard work is simply hard work. As a result, what you do in the time you work determines what you achieve. And since what you do is determined by what you think, how big you think becomes the launching pad for how high you achieve.

Every level of achievement requires its own combination of what you do, how you do it, and who you do it with.

It’s unfortunate, but these things don’t build on each other. If you learn to do something one way, and with one set of relationships, that may work fine until you want to achieve more.

you’ve boxed yourself in when there is a simple way to avoid it. Think as big as you possibly can and base what you do, how you do it, and who you do it with on succeeding at that level.

might take you more than your lifetime to run into the walls of a box this big.

What you build today will either empower or restrict you tomorrow.

Big gives you the best chance for extraordinary results today and tomorrow.

Big requires growth, and by the time you arrive, you’re big too! What seemed an insurmountable mountain from a distance is just a small hill when you arrive—at least in proportion to the person you’ve become. Your thinking, your skills, your relationships, your sense of what is possible and what it takes all grow on the journey to big.

the top-secret project would provide ample opportunities to “make mistakes and struggle, but eventually we may do something that we’ll remember the rest of our lives.”

Big stands for greatness—extraordinary results. Pursue a big life and you’re pursuing the greatest life you can possibly live. To live great, you have to think big.

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

Don’t fear big. Fear mediocrity. Fear waste. Fear the lack of living to your fullest.

Only living big will let you experience your true life and work potential.

Avoid incremental thinking that simply asks, “What do I do next?” This is at best the slow lane to success and, at worst, the off ramp.

Ask bigger questions. A good rule of thumb is to double down everywhere in your life.

If your goal is ten, ask the question: “How can I reach 20?” Set a goal so far above what you want that you’ll be building a plan that practically guarantees your original goal.