Review: The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

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I’m a bit of a nonfiction junkie when it comes to books.

I’ve been trying to read more fiction, but I always find myself going back to nonfiction books about marketing, running a small business, productivity, consulting and figuring out how to be my best self.

I recently read a book that combines all these topics into one super-engaging, sharply-designed package. It inspired me to take immediately action in my own life and I gave several copies to friends and family members I knew would appreciate it.

The ONE Thing Review

The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, is a life-improvement masterpiece. The aim of the book is to show you how to cut through the clutter of work, life, well-being, love, family, hobbies, free time, etc., and focus on the things that matter.

Cutting through clutter is a brilliant and important idea—but not a new one, right?

The ONE Thing gets at the topic in a way that’s different from anything else I’ve read or tried. It’s one of those strategies that’s painfully obvious, but Keller and Papasan have turned it into an effective system to improve any area of your life.

The Idea Behind The ONE Thing

The idea is to find the one thing, in any situation, that will allow you to produce extraordinary results. Take any area of your life and find the one action you can take, or focus you can shift, that makes everything else easier or unnecessary.

As Keller explains in the book, when you want the best chance to succeed at anything, your approach should always be to go small:

“Going small” is ignoring all the things you could do and doing what you should do. It’s recognizing that not all things matter equally and finding the things that matter most. It’s a tighter way to connect what you do with what you want. It’s realizing that extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus…When you go as small as possible, you’ll be staring at one thing. And that’s the point.

The ONE Thing, in a Nutshell

If I had to nutshell The ONE Thing strategy for you, I’d say take anything in your life, including your to-do list, your career goals, your spiritual practice, your family’s meal planning or a remodel of your home and give it a critical look. See where you have the most impact or success and where you’re wasting time or energy. Distill your actions down to the most powerful ones and let go of everything else.

But that’s just the nutshell. The ONE Thing will enlighten and inspire you far more than I can here, so I strongly suggest you pick a copy up, either from your local library, a local bookseller, Bookshop.org or Amazon.

Once you read it, let me know what you think and how you apply the strategy. I’m always curious to hear what kind of shifts it inspires in people.

The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
Get it on Amazon | Get it on Bookshop.org