The One Thing - Gary Keller - Summary

For a long time, I've been writing short notes about the books I read in a small black-covered notebook that I always carry with me, and I would read these notes when I'm free, waiting for something, or to avoid boredom during travel.

During conversations with my close circle, I would try to share these notes with them if I had the time. This time, I decided to make a change and wanted to keep the summary of the last book I read online. Because the notes I have are stuck in an area that only I and my close circle can benefit from. I think online, many more people can access it.

A short while ago, while researching books on "Focus" and "Causes of Success," I came across an unusual book. The One Thing. The strongest aspect of the book was that it was written as a result of over 1000 article and topic researches over about 4 years. So this wasn't one of those ordinary think-and-succeed copycat books.

As the name of the book suggests, it's a work that wants us to always look in the same direction, to focus, and embellishes this with many topics. The topics in the content are supported by examples from successful people and results of previously conducted social experiments on what you should do, why, and how. Consequently, this helps you absorb all the information in the book with the confidence that comes from knowing the source of the information.

I managed to finish the book without my motivation dropping for a moment. If you read the notes here and like them, make sure to buy the book yourself, read it, and add it to your library. I hope the notes I've taken here will be useful to you and your circle.

Note: If you see any typos, don't hesitate to let me know by email.

Note 2: If you want to read the summary of the book quickly, I uploaded the spritz version to YouTube.

• The One Thing - Gary W. Keller - Book summary, Spritz

1. The One Thing

• If you chase two rabbits, you will catch neither (Russian Proverb)
• The number of hours in a day is the same for everyone, but why do successful people succeed?
• Be like a Postage Stamp, stick to one thing until you get to where you need to go.
• Moving forward bit by bit means doing what you need to do while ignoring everything else you could do.
• The way to get the best out of your work, to live life in the best way, is to progress as slowly as possible.
• People think big successes are complex. That's why they settle for less.
• People get lost in the midst of doing many things and end up achieving very little.
• Over time, they lower their expectations, put their dreams aside, and allow their lives to shrink.
• The problem with trying to do too many things is that even if it works, it brings much more burden to your work and life, along with many bad things.
• Moving forward bit by bit is a simple approach to adopt for extraordinary results, and it works. It always works everywhere and in every subject. Because it has only one purpose. And that is to eventually get you where you want to be.
• When you move forward as slowly as possible, you focus your eyes on one thing. And that's what you want.

2. The Domino Effect

• Every big change starts like falling domino pieces.
• Lorne Whitehead: American Journal of Physics: As domino pieces fall, they not only knock down many things but also bigger things. A single domino piece can knock down another domino piece 50% larger than itself.
• Domino #1 Pizza tower #18 Eiffel Tower #23 Mount Everest #31 Moon Distance #57.
• Getting extraordinary results is about creating a domino effect in your life.
• The difficulty is that life doesn't tell us "This is where you need to start" for us.
• People who have achieved great success rearrange their priorities every day and keep hitting until they find and knock down the leading domino.
• Extraordinary success is not simultaneous, but sequential.
• Success breeds success.
• When you see someone with a lot of money, know that they earned that money over time. (The same goes for someone who has done a lot, is very talented, or very knowledgeable)
• The key phrase is "OVER TIME"

3. Success Leaves Clues

• One product, one service.
• "Those who make progress in this world are people who concentrate on moving forward step by step." -Og Mandino
• Halo effect: When the positive aspects of something hide its negative aspects.
• The most successful companies always ask "What is our ONE thing?"
• "There can only be one most important thing. There may be many important things, but only one can be the most important." -Ross Garber
• One thing, One person.
• No one in life has gotten anywhere by themselves.
• Pat Matthews became one of America's greatest artists by developing the habit of making one painting every day.
• Being passionate about something means working hard on it, dedicating a lot of time to it, and practicing it.
• Better results will often lead to the person enjoying what they do more and becoming more passionate about it, thus dedicating more time to it. This can become a cycle that leads to extraordinary results.
• "Success requires action towards a single purpose." -Vince Lombardi

4. Everything Matters Equally

• "What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so." -Mark Twain
• I have too many things to do.
• "Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least." -Goethe
• When making decisions, we tend to choose the easy way and turn to what's familiar.
• While wandering around during the day like confused characters in horror movies, we finally find ourselves running up the stairs instead of going out the front door.
• We sacrifice the best decision for "any" decision.
• "The voice of the most important things is not always loud." -Bob Hawke
• We feel everything is urgent and important. Everything seems equal to us. Being active and busy doesn't bring us closer to success in any way.
• Being busy is not enough. The question is what our busyness is about.
• Not everything is equal, success is definitely not about who does the most.
• To-do lists tyrannize us. Incoming emails start dictating what we should do.
• Successful people separate what's most important from other things. They do earlier what others plan to do later. They do later or never do what others do. The difference is in the correctness of the chosen path.
• Successful people always act with a clear perception of their priorities.
• A to-do list is inherently lacking the aim of being successful.
• If a list is not built within the framework of success, it won't take you there.
• Pareto Principle: One of the greatest productivity truths discovered so far.
• EFFORT 20% - RESULT OBTAINED 80%
• You'll get most of what you want from a small portion of what you'll do.
• Extraordinary results are created not by a disproportionate number of actions, but by a small number of actions.
• When the Pareto Principle is applied to a to-do list, it becomes a success list.
• Author: The 80/20 rule is one of the biggest rules guiding success in my career.
• Pareto at Extremes: Finding the one thing by applying 20% to the remaining 20% and 20% to the Remaining.
• Move forward bit by bit, avoid extremes, learn to say later, never, not now.
• Don't fall into the trap of the tick-off game.
• The truth is nothing is equal.
• Success comes from doing what's most important.
• It's a misconception that if I do several things at once, I'll get more done.

5. Multitasking

• "To do two things at once is to do neither." -Publisus Syrus
• Nass, Stanford Uni, questionnaire to 262 students: Advanced multitaskers and lower-level multitaskers.
• – Nass "Advanced multitaskers are suckers not to be taken seriously." Multitaskers are terrible at everything.
• "Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time" -Steve Uzzell
• Starting to do two things at once either results in failure or both end up being half-baked.
• Multitasking is an effective way to do less and a successful way to screw up many things at once.
• The processor creates the illusion of doing multiple tasks simultaneously by going back and forth. It performs one operation at a time.
• People cannot focus on two things at once.
• The issue is not that we have little time for the things we need to do, but that we feel like we have to do many things in the time we have.
• Researchers say employees are interrupted every 11 minutes.
• It's said that almost 1/3 of the day is spent trying to focus on work.
• We're only a few seconds away from starting to think about something else we could be doing while doing something.
• We can't focus on two actions at once.
• We can do two things at once, but we can't focus on two things at once.
• When we start doing two things at once, our attention is divided, and when we try to do a third thing, we start to completely miss things.
• The brain has the ability to do only one thing at a time.
• The more time we spend on the task we transition to, the less likely we are to return to the first task. This is how unfinished tasks accumulate.
• Researchers estimate that an average of 28% of a day is lost to the inefficiency caused by multitasking.
• For some reason, they believe each time that the task completion time is longer than actually needed. (Misconception)
• Multitaskers make more mistakes. They usually make wrong decisions. Because they prefer new information over old, even if the old is more valuable.
• Being in an environment prone to distraction leads to faster distraction.
• Multitasking slows us down, hinders our mental agility.
• Conversations while driving cause a 40% decrease in focus. This can have the same effect as being drunk.
• Multitasking leads us to ruin in different ways.

6. A Disciplined Life

• Working on something until it brings regular returns.
• Success is about doing the right thing. Not about doing everything right.
• Right habits simplify life. Because we know what we need to do well and what we shouldn't do.
• The most productive number of days is 66. (Statistical report)
• The path of right discipline is long. Habits are only difficult at the beginning.
• Maintaining habits requires less effort and energy compared to acquiring them.
• Difficult things become habits. Habits turn difficult things into easy ones.
• Habits are acquired one by one and over time
• I should be in a position to do whatever I want whenever I want

7. Willpower is Always Ready and Present

• The ability to delay gratification is important.
• Stanford Uni. 165 Uni Students are made to memorize 2 and 7-digit numbers, those who choose chocolate cake are the 7-digit ones.
• Last in, first out
• Those who use artificial sweeteners make 2 times more mistakes in the test
• The chances of prisoners applying for parole in the mornings and after each break increase by 65%.
• Your default settings will determine your level of success.
• You should do whatever is most important for you when your willpower is at its peak.
• Do your ONE thing before your willpower weakens.
• Willpower is limited in quantity each day.
• Eat right and regularly

8. A Balanced Life

• A balanced life is a lie.
• You shouldn't chase balance. Because nothing magical happens at the midpoint; magical things happen at the extremes.
• It's not about how much time you devote to your work. It's about how much you focus over time.
• To achieve extraordinary results, you must choose what's most important and give it the necessary time.
• Extraordinary results require setting a priority and acting accordingly. Work life is divided into two: The most important thing and all other things.

9. Big is Bad

• What keeps us from our goals is not only obstacles but the clear path to less important goals.
• Children with a growth mindset use better learning strategies in class, experience less helplessness, show more positive effort, and are more successful compared to their peers with a fixed mindset.
• To live an amazing life, you have to think big
• Don't be afraid of big, be afraid of being ordinary, being wasted, not being able to live life to the fullest.
• Things that consistently work for others will almost always work for us too.
• Don't let small thinkers shrink your life.
• Throughout our lives, we've been fed with suggestions and information that big thoughts will bring big troubles. However, this only created negative pressure for us to draw our boundaries small. If we think big, we can win big, if we think small, we can win small, the difference is obviously in what is dreamed.
• Reaching a small dream in the same time unit or thinking big and getting big results in the same time unit is entirely related to the person's perspective.
• Set a goal far above what you desire and build a plan in implementation that will guarantee you reach your real goal.

10. The Focusing Question

• The secret of progress is to begin. The secret of starting is to break your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then start on the first one.
• "Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers." -Voltaire
• "Half of wisdom is in asking sensible questions." -Sir Francis Bacon
• Research shows that asking questions contributes to learning and performance by up to 150 percent.
• Sometimes questions are more important than answers.
• What's the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?
• Big Picture: What is my ONE Thing? Small focus: What's my ONE Thing right now?
• What's the ONE Thing I can do? Such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary
• "I CAN DO" not should do, could do, or would do.
• Such that by doing it: All those would-haves, could-haves, should-haves ran away and hid behind a tiny Did.
• Everything else will be easier or unnecessary: Will make everything else easy and unnecessary
• The focusing question asks you to find the first domino and focus on it until you knock it over.
• Big questions are paths to big answers.
• This question will work when you think about what you want to specialize in, what you want to give to others and society, and how you want to be remembered.
• "What's my ONE Thing right now?" Use this question when you wake up in the morning and throughout the day. This question helps you find your first domino piece.

11. The Success Habit

• "Be careful how you interpret the world: It is like that" -Erich Heller
• What's the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?
• The time frame and the phrase "will be easier and unnecessary" should be added to the question.
• Focusing question: What's the ONE Thing I can do this week such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary for achieving my goals for my work? (In 5 years, in 1 year, This month, this week, today, right now)
• For my spiritual life, For my physical health, for my profession, For my personal life, For my important relationships, For my work, For my financial life, Start each day with this question.
• When you make this a habit, you'll be locked onto extraordinary results.
• It takes 66 days to gain all this habit.
• Hang a sign in a visible place saying: "Until my ONE Thing is done, everything else is a distraction."
• People are influenced by each other: Share your ONE Thing with others.

12. The Path to Big Answers

• "People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits, and their habits decide their futures." -F.M. Alexander
• Ask a big question and set out in search of a big answer.
• Ask big and specific questions: What can I do to double sales in six months?
• Low targets do not require extraordinary actions.
• When you ask a big question, you are actually chasing a big goal.
• "Big and Specific" pattern
• Question: What is the ONE Thing I can do to double sales in six months, such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?
• The difficulty of the question forces you to find the answer.
• The answer lies outside your comfort zone.
• Think big and specific: The best question, the best target, is the big and specific question.
• Setting an achievable goal is like adding a new task to the list of things to check if you can do.
• Extraordinary Results Unleash the Power Within You.
• "Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." -Will Rogers.

13. Living with Purpose

• The most productive people start with a purpose.
• "Life isn't about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself." – G. Bernard Shaw
• Our destiny is determined by the decisions we make, shaped by the choices we make in life.
• The wealth figure depends on what we will do with that money.
• To be financially wealthy, we must have a purpose in life.
• Without a purpose, you'll never understand if you have enough money and will never be financially wealthy.
• THE POWER OF PURPOSE: When you have a definite purpose in life, clarity emerges faster, leading to more belief in the direction you are heading and thus making faster decisions.
• Knowing where you are going helps guide you to the best possible results and experiences life has to offer.
• Purpose helps when things don't go your way.
• Sticking to something long enough to achieve success is the fundamental need to achieve extraordinary results.
• "What is the ONE Thing I can do that will make everything else easier or unnecessary?" Ask this question and connect to your purpose.
• To discover your purpose, ask yourself what motivates you.
• Write down what you want to achieve and describe how you will do it.
• The author's purpose: My purpose is to help people live the most extraordinary life possible through my teachings, counseling, and writings.
• Set a direction for yourself, start living that way, and see what happens. Over time, everything will become clearer, and if you don't like what you experience, you can always change your mind. This is your life.

14. Living with Priorities

• When you live with purpose, you know where you want to go. When you live with priorities, you know what you need to do to get there.
• The power of purpose in shaping our lives is proportional to the power of the priority we connect with it. Purpose has no power without priority.
• People have a stronger preference for immediate gains over future gains, and the fact that future gains are much greater does not change the outcome.
• Hyperbolic Discounting: The effect of perceiving future gains as distant and small, mistakenly thinking they are, and devaluing them.
• Currently, time bias prevails, allowing a great future to slip away.
• The idea that your current ONE Thing is within today's ONE Thing, today's ONE Thing is within this week's ONE Thing, and this week's ONE Thing is within this month's ONE Thing is similar to Matryoshka dolls.
• A small thing builds something much bigger than itself.
• We can't do everything at once, so we need to focus on the right ONE Thing.
• Future Goal: What is the ONE Thing I want to do in the future?
• Five-Year Goal: Based on my Future Goal, what is the ONE Thing I can do in the next five years?
• One-Year Goal: Based on my Five-Year Goal, what is the ONE Thing I can do this year?
• Monthly Goal: Based on my One-Year Goal, what is the ONE Thing I can do this month?
• Weekly Goal: Based on my Monthly Goal, what is the ONE Thing I can do this week?
• Daily Goal: Based on my Weekly Goal, what is the ONE Thing I can do today?
• Right Now: Based on my Daily Goal, what is the ONE Thing I can do right now?
• We must learn the path of thinking big and progressing step by step.
• We can't reach our goals because we don't connect today to all those tomorrows needed to get there.
• Connect today to all tomorrows.
• Research shows that students who visualize passing their exams perform better. (Visualization.)
• Visualizing the process – breaking a big goal into the steps needed to achieve it – helps engage strategic thinking necessary for extraordinary results and planning.
• The last step is to write the answers on paper.
• Those who write down their goals are 39.5% more successful in achieving them compared to others.
• Set a goal for now. Write your goal.

15. Living for Productivity

• Productivity is about prioritizing, planning, and protecting your time at all costs.
• Productive actions change a person's life.
• When what we do is important, the thing that defines our life more than anything else will be what we do.
• A time management system is measured by the productivity it generates.
• Block time for your ONE Thing, protect the time you blocked.
• Time Blocking: Many people think there is never enough time to be successful. But when we block time, we have enough time. Time blocking is an extremely result-oriented way to review and use time. It is a method to guarantee that what needs to be done will be done.
• Alexander Graham Bell: "Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."
• Time blocking is the most powerful tool for productivity.
• Block an appropriate time daily and make it a habit.
• What is the ONE Thing I can do today for my ONE Thing that will make everything else easier or unnecessary?
• People who do this are the ones who seize the greatest opportunities in their careers.
• Thanks to their ONE Thing, they slowly but surely become recognized within their organizations and become irreplaceable.
• Extraordinary achievements come when you take time every day to be extraordinary.
• The most successful people see themselves as working people even during vacation times.
• The most successful people work event-based and stay on task until the job is done.
• Give yourself 30 minutes to an hour daily and then start working on your ONE Thing.
• The suggestion is to block 4 hours daily.
• "4 hours a day"
• Look at your future and five-year goals and assess the progress you need to make in the next year to stay on track.
• Block an hour each week to review your yearly and monthly goals. First, ask what needs to happen that month to stay on track for your yearly goals. Then ask what needs to happen that week to stay on track for your monthly goals.
• Create a chain and never break it.
• Have excuses ready to protect your time – "Sorry, I have an appointment at that time."
• Let the person making the request know that the job will be done.
• Until I handle my ONE Thing, everything else is just a distraction.
• Have methods to clear your mind. (Taking notes of things that come to mind)
• There will always be many things screaming to be done.
• Did something come to mind? Write it down on the task list immediately and get back to work. Get that thing out of your sight.
• Have a sanctuary where you can work. Turn off your phone, email, and exit your internet browser. Your most important task deserves 100% of your attention.
• What is the ONE Thing I can do every day that will make everything else easier or unnecessary, and protect my time blocking?
• On the wall: Nothing and no one has permission to keep me from doing my ONE Thing.

16. Three Commitments

• "Nobody who ever gave their best regretted it." – George Halas
• Never forget the 10,000-hour rule. We are not born talented or geniuses.
• Spend enough time on a job, and eventually, you will surpass talent every time.
• When you dedicate yourself to mastering your ONE Thing, it accelerates the process of other things and serves as a platform for them. Knowledge brings knowledge, and skill brings skill.
• Do your best and at the same time, do the best that can be done.
• Those who write down their goals and report to their friends are 76.7% more likely to achieve their goals.
• Writing down goals is effective, but sharing your goals with friends doubles the impact.
• Knowing that your partner is waiting for the next progress report encourages you to get better results.
• Elite people find a coach to help them.
• When you block time for your most important priority, protect your blocked time, and then use your blocked time as effectively as possible, you will achieve maximum productivity.
• Students in a hurry did not see or stop for those on the road. (%90)

17. Four Thieves

• Inability to say no, fear of chaos, poor health habits, an environment that doesn't support goals.
• A "yes" must be defended over time with 1,000 "nos."
• Half of knowing what you want is knowing what you have to give up to get it.
• Apple reduced from 350 products to 10.
• Jobs: Focus is about saying no.
• Saying yes to your ONE Thing is your first priority.
• You have to endure the pain of saying no in the short term.
• Prepare frequently asked pages for idle tasks.
• To consider a request, it must be related to my ONE Thing.
• "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone."
• "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, what is an empty desk a sign of?" – Albert Einstein.
• When we dedicate ourselves to our ONE Thing every day, extraordinary results start to emerge.
• "The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook." -William James
• Meditate early in the morning, start the day by connecting with your big goals. Your thoughts and actions will come into the same frequency.
• Plan what you will eat for a week, day by day.
• Use a pedometer. Do not end the day with less than 10,000 steps.
• Look at what you need to do and plan your time according to how much time it will take to get those things done. This prevents your mind from lingering on things that won't get done.
• When you spend the first hours of the day gathering energy, you will be able to spend the rest of the day with very little extra effort.
• Focus on starting each day full of energy.
• Your environment should support your goals.
• Behaviors are contagious.
• Ensuring the right people are around you is the right thing to do.
• If one of your close friends is obese, you are 57% likely to be obese too.
• The people you hang out with tend to set the standards for what is acceptable.
• Spending time with highly successful people will positively impact your own motivation and performance.
• The wrong people in your environment can easily derail you from the productivity path you have set.
• "Surround yourself only with people who will lift you higher." -Oprah Winfrey.
• If your environment is filled with distractions and diversions, you may find yourself doing things you shouldn't be doing without realizing it. This means you won't reach where you need to go.
• Most of us nibble on the sweets along the way. We nibble on whatever is on the path.
• "The road to success is always under construction." -Lily Tomlin.
• Start saying no, learn. For now, no.
• Ensure that the people and physical environment around you support your goals.
• One step at a time.
• Extraordinary results require progressing step by step.
• Narrowing your focus simplifies your thoughts and clarifies what you need to do.
• If you think small, your life will probably stay small.
• If you think big, your life has a chance to grow. The choice is yours.
• We must explore our options, narrow them down, prioritize them, and do the most important thing.
• Actions build on actions, habits build on habits, success builds on success.
• The right domino topples the next one, then another, and then others.
• Find the advantageous action.
• Great lives send out powerful chain reactions and are built sequentially.
• The wolf you feed wins. The Fear Wolf or the Faith Wolf?
• Faith will ultimately lead to actions.
• "In the next twenty years, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, dream, discover." -Mark Twain.
• Live a life where you say, "I'm glad I did," instead of "I wish I had."
• The most important thing is to live a life without regret.
• – I wish I had let myself be happier.
• – I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
• – I wish I had had the courage to express my feelings.
• – I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
• – I wish I had had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
• Actions may be arduous and troublesome at first, but in the long run, what leads to regret is inaction.
• Make sure you are doing what is most important to you today.
• When you find what is most important to you, everything will make sense.
• Put the ONE Thing at the top of your daily agenda.
• "Delay has no blessing." -William Shakespeare
• "The thing that will make everything else easier or unnecessary."
• The ONE Thing forces you to think big,
• Making a list helps you get things done according to the list. But to achieve the geometric progression, you need to prioritize tasks and then focus on the ONE Thing that will start the toppling of the dominoes.
• Ask big and specific questions.
• If you try to do everything, you'll end up achieving nothing.
• If you try to do the ONE RIGHT THING, you will succeed.
• What is the ONE Thing I can do right now to make everything else easier or unnecessary, so I can start using the ONE Thing in my life?