If you want to read one single book this year, make it this one!

One day, Garry Keller, the founder of the largest real estate company, asks himself; “What is the ONE thing I can do this week that by doing it everything else could be easier or unnecessary?” And the most awesome thing happens. By reading and applying the principles mentioned in this book, awesome things will inevitably happen in your life, as well.

- 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.

- DOMINO EFFECT

“Every great change starts like falling dominoes.” — BJ Thornton

In 1983, Lorne Whitehead wrote in the American Journal of Physics that he’d discovered that domino falls could not only topple many things, they could also topple bigger things. He described how a single domino is capable of bringing down another domino that is actually 50 percent larger.

Getting extraordinary results is all about creating a domino effect in your life.

Because extraordinary success is sequential, not simultaneous. What starts out linear becomes geometric. You do the right thing and then you do the next right thing. Over time it adds up, and the geometric potential of success is unleashed. The domino effect applies to the big picture, like your work or your business, and it applies to the smallest moment in each day when you’re trying to decide what to do next. Success builds on success, and as this happens, over and over, you move toward the highest success possible.

• The ONE Thing becomes difficult because we’ve unfortunately bought into too many others — and more often than not those “other things” muddle our thinking, misguide our actions, and sidetrack our success.

-THE SIX LIES BETWEEN YOU AND SUCCESS

1. Everything Matters Equally

2. Multitasking

3. A Disciplined Life

4. Willpower Is Always on Will-Call

5. A Balanced Life

6. Big Is Bad

- “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

- When everything feels urgent and important, everything seems equal. We become active and busy, but this doesn’t actually move us any closer to success. Activity is often unrelated to productivity, and busyness rarely takes care of business.

- To-do lists are a staple of the time-management-and-success industry. With our wants and others’ wishes flying at us right and left, we impulsively jot them down on scraps of paper in moments of clarity or build them methodically on printed notepads. Time planners reserve valuable space for daily, weekly, and monthly task lists. Apps abound for taking to-dos mobile, and software programs code them right into their menus. It seems that everywhere we turn we’re encouraged to make lists — and though lists are invaluable, they have a dark side. While to-dos serve as a useful collection of our best intentions, they also tyrannize us with trivial, unimportant stuff that we feel obligated to get done — because it’s on our list. Which is why most of us have a love-hate relationship with our to-dos. If allowed, they set our priorities the same way an inbox can dictate our day.

- 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.

- Instead of a to-do list, you need a success list — a list that is purposefully created around extraordinary results.

- EXTREME PARETO

The 80/20 rule is the first word, but not the last, about success. What Pareto started, you’ve got to finish. Success requires that you follow the 80/20 Principle, but you don’t have to stop there.

Keep going. You can actually take 20 percent of the 20 percent of the 20 percent and continue until you get to the single most important thing! (See figure 5.) No matter the task, mission, or goal. Big or small. Start with as large a list as you want, but develop the mindset that you will whittle your way from there to the critical few and not stop until you end with the essential ONE. The imperative ONE. The ONE Thing.

1. Go small. Don’t focus on being busy; focus on being productive. Allow what matters most to drive your day.

2. Go extreme. Once you’ve figured out what actually matters, keep asking what matters most until there is only one thing left. That core activity goes at the top of your success list.

3. Say no. Whether you say “later” or “never,” the point is to say “not now” to anything else you could do until your most important work is done.

4. Don’t get trapped in the “check off” game.

-THE SIX LIES BETWEEN YOU AND SUCCESS

1. Everything Matters Equally

2. Multitasking

3. A Disciplined Life

4. Willpower Is Always on Will-Call

5. A Balanced Life

6. Big Is Bad

- “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

- When everything feels urgent and important, everything seems equal. We become active and busy, but this doesn’t actually move us any closer to success. Activity is often unrelated to productivity, and busyness rarely takes care of business.

- To-do lists are a staple of the time-management-and-success industry. With our wants and others’ wishes flying at us right and left, we impulsively jot them down on scraps of paper in moments of clarity or build them methodically on printed notepads. Time planners reserve valuable space for daily, weekly, and monthly task lists. Apps abound for taking to-dos mobile, and software programs code them right into their menus. It seems that everywhere we turn we’re encouraged to make lists — and though lists are invaluable, they have a dark side. While to-dos serve as a useful collection of our best intentions, they also tyrannize us with trivial, unimportant stuff that we feel obligated to get done — because it’s on our list. Which is why most of us have a love-hate relationship with our to-dos. If allowed, they set our priorities the same way an inbox can dictate our day.

- 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.

- Instead of a to-do list, you need a success list — a list that is purposefully created around extraordinary results.

- EXTREME PARETO

The 80/20 rule is the first word, but not the last, about success. What Pareto started, you’ve got to finish. Success requires that you follow the 80/20 Principle, but you don’t have to stop there.

Keep going. You can actually take 20 percent of the 20 percent of the 20 percent and continue until you get to the single most important thing! (See figure 5.) No matter the task, mission, or goal. Big or small. Start with as large a list as you want, but develop the mindset that you will whittle your way from there to the critical few and not stop until you end with the essential ONE. The imperative ONE. The ONE Thing.

1. Go small. Don’t focus on being busy; focus on being productive. Allow what matters most to drive your day.

2. Go extreme. Once you’ve figured out what actually matters, keep asking what matters most until there is only one thing left. That core activity goes at the top of your success list.

3. Say no. Whether you say “later” or “never,” the point is to say “not now” to anything else you could do until your most important work is done.

4. Don’t get trapped in the “check off” game.

• It’s not that we have too little time to do all the things we need to do, it’s that we feel the need to do too many things in the time we have. So we double and triple up in the hope of getting everything done.

- Researchers estimate we lose 28 percent of an average workday to multitasking ineffectiveness.

1. Distraction is natural. Don’t feel bad when you get distracted. Everyone gets distracted.

2. Multitasking takes a toll. At home or at work, distractions lead to poor choices, painful mistakes, and unnecessary stress.

3. Distraction undermines results. When you try to do too much at once, you can end up doing nothing well. Figure out what matters most in the moment and give it your undivided attention.

In order to be able to put the principle of The ONE Thing to work, you can’t buy into the lie that trying to do two things at once is a good idea. Though multitasking is sometimes possible, it’s never possible to do it effectively.

- You don’t need to be a disciplined person to be successful. In fact, you can become successful with less discipline than you think, for one simple reason: success is about doing the right thing, not about doing everything right. The trick to success is to choose the right habit and bring just enough discipline to establish it.

- Those with the right habits seem to do better than others. They’re doing the most important thing regularly and, as a result, everything else is easier.

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

2. Build one habit at a time. Success is sequential, not simultaneous. No one actually has the discipline to acquire more than one powerful new habit at a time. Super-successful people aren’t superhuman at all; they’ve just used selected discipline to develop a few significant habits. One at a time. Over time.

3. Give each habit enough time. Stick with the discipline long enough for it to become routine. Habits, on average, take 66 days to form. Once a habit is solidly established, you can either build on that habit or, if appropriate, build another one.

- Don’t fear big. Fear mediocrity. Fear waste. Fear the lack of living to your fullest. When we fear big, we either consciously or subconsciously work against it. We either run toward lesser outcomes and opportunities or we simply run away from the big ones.

1. Think big. 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.

2. Don’t order from the menu. Apple’s celebrated 1997 “Think Different” ad campaign featured icons like Ali, Dylan, Einstein, Hitchcock, Picasso, Gandhi, and others who “saw things differently” and who went on to transform the world we know. The point was that they didn’t choose from the available options; they imagined outcomes that no one else had. They ignored the menu and ordered their own creations. As the ad reminds us, “People who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the only ones who do.”

3. Act bold. Big thoughts go nowhere without bold action. Once you’ve asked a big question, pause to imagine what life looks like with the answer. If you still can’t imagine it, go study people who have already achieved it. What are the models, systems, habits, and relationships of other people who have found the answer? As much as we’d like to believe we’re all different, what consistently works for others will almost always work for us.4. Don’t fear failure. It’s as much a part of your journey to extraordinary results as success. Adopt a growth mindset, and don’t be afraid of where it can take you. Extraordinary results aren’t built solely on extraordinary results. They’re built on failure too. In fact, it would be accurate to say that we fail our way to success. When we fail, we stop, ask what we need to do to succeed, learn from our mistakes, and grow. Don’t be afraid to fail. See it as part of your learning process and keep striving for your true potential.

- We overthink, overplan, and over-analyze our careers, our businesses, and our lives; that long hours are neither virtuous nor healthy; and that we usually succeed in spite of most of what we do, not because of it. I discovered that we can’t manage time, and that the key to success isn’t in all the things we do but in the handful of things we do well.

- On June 23, 1885, in the town of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Andrew Carnegie addressed the students of the Curry Commercial College. At the height of his business success, the Carnegie Steel Company was the largest and most profitable industrial enterprise in the world. Carnegie would later become the second-richest man in history, after John D. Rockefeller. In Carnegie’s talk, entitled “The Road to Business Success,” he discussed his life as a successful businessperson and gave this advice: And here is the prime condition of success, the great secret — concentrate your energy, thought and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged. Having begun on one line, resolve to fight it out on that line, to lead in it, adopt every improvement, have the best machinery, and know the most about it. The concerns which fail are those which have scattered their capital, which means that they have scattered their brains also. They have investments in this, or that, or the other, here, there and everywhere. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is all wrong. I tell you “put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.” Look round you and take notice; men who do that do not often fail. It is easy to watch and carry the one basket. It is trying to carry too many baskets that breaks most eggs in this country.

Anyone who dreams of an uncommon life eventually discovers there is no choice but to seek an uncommon approach to living it.

- To stay on track for the best possible day, month, year, or career, you must keep asking the Focusing Question. Ask it again and again, and it forces you to line up tasks in their levered order of importance. Then, each time you ask it, you see your next priority. The power of this approach is that you’re setting yourself up to accomplish one task on top of another. When you do the right task first, you also build the right mindset first, the right skill first, and the right relationship first. Powered by the Focusing Question, your actions become a natural progression of building one right thing on top of the previous right thing.

1. Understand and believe it. The first step is to understand the concept of the ONE Thing, then to believe that it can make a difference in your life. If you don’t understand and believe, you won’t take action.

2. Use it. Ask yourself the Focusing Question. Start each day by asking, “What’s the ONE Thing I can do today for [whatever you want] such that by doing it everything else will be easier or even unnecessary?” When you do this, your direction will become clear. Your work will be more productive and your personal life more rewarding.

3. Make it a habit. When you make asking the Focusing Question a habit, you fully engage its power to get the extraordinary results you want. It’s a difference maker. Research says this will take about 66 days. Whether it takes you a few weeks or a few months, stick with it until it becomes your routine. If you’re not serious about learning the Success Habit, you’re not serious about getting extraordinary results.

4. Leverage reminders. Set up ways to remind yourself to use the Focusing Question. One of the best ways to do this is to put up a sign at work that says, “Until my ONE Thing is done — everything else is a distraction.” We designed the back cover of this book to be a trigger — set it on the corner of your desk so that it’s the first thing you see when you get to work. Use notes, screen savers, and calendar cues to keep making the connection between the Success Habit and the results you seek. Put up reminders like, “The ONE Thing = Extraordinary Results” or “The Success Habit Will Get Me to My Goal.”

5. Recruit support. Research shows that those around you can influence you tremendously. Starting a success support group with some of your work colleagues can help inspire all of you to practice the Success Habit every day. Get your family involved. Share your ONE Thing. Get them on board. Use the Focusing Question around them to show them how the Success Habit can make a difference in their school work, their personal achievements, or any other part of their lives.

“People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.” — F. M. Alexander

1. Think big and specific. Setting a goal you intend to achieve is like asking a question. It’s a simple step from “I’d like to do that” to “How do I achieve that?” The best question — and by default, the best goal — is big and specific: big, because you’re after extraordinary results; specific, to give you something to aim at and to leave no wiggle room about whether you hit the mark. A big and specific question, especially in the form of the Focusing Question, helps you zero in on the best possible answer.

2. Think possibilities. Setting a doable goal is almost like creating a task to check off your list. A stretch goal is more challenging. It aims you at the edge of your current abilities; you have to stretch to reach it. The best goal explores what’s possible. When you see people and businesses that have undergone transformations, this is where they live.

3. Benchmark and trend for the best answer. No one has a crystal ball, but with practice you can become surprisingly good at anticipating where things are heading. The people and businesses who get there first often enjoy the lion’s share of the rewards with few, if any, competitors. Benchmark and trend to find the extraordinary answer you need for extraordinary results.

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” — George Bernard Shaw

- One of our biggest challenges is making sure our life’s purpose doesn’t become a beggar’s bowl, a bottomless pit of desire continually searching for the next thing that will make us happy. That’s a losing proposition.

- I believe that financially wealthy people are those who have enough money coming in without having to work to finance their purpose in life. Now, please realize that this definition presents a challenge to anyone who accepts it. To be financially wealthy you must have a purpose for your life. In other words, without purpose, you’ll never know when you have enough money, and you can never be financially wealthy.

1. Happiness happens on the way to fulfillment. We all want to be happy, but seeking it isn’t the best way to find it. The surest path to achieving lasting happiness happens when you make your life about something bigger, when you bring meaning and purpose to your everyday actions.

2. Discover your Big Why. Discover your purpose by asking yourself what drives you. What’s the thing that gets you up in the morning and keeps you going when you’re tired and worn down? I sometimes refer to this as your “Big Why.” It’s why you’re excited with your life. It’s why you’re doing what you’re doing.

3. Absent an answer, pick a direction. “Purpose” may sound heavy, but it doesn’t have to be. Think of it as simply the ONE Thing you want your life to be about more than any other. Try writing down something you’d like to accomplish and then describe how you’d do it.

- Purpose without priority is powerless.

1. There can only be ONE. Your most important priority is the ONE Thing you can do right now that will help you achieve what matters most to you. You may have many “priorities,” but dig deep and you’ll discover there is always one that matters most, your top priority — your ONE Thing.

2. Goal Set to the Now. Knowing your future goal is how you begin. Identifying the steps you need to accomplish along the way keeps your thinking clear while you uncover the right priority you need to accomplish right now.

3. Put pen to paper. Write your goals down and keep them close.

Pull your purpose through to a single priority built by Goal Setting to the Now, and that priority — that ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary — will show you the way to extraordinary results. And once you know what to do, the only thing left is to go from knowing to doing.

“Productivity isn’t about being a workhorse, keeping busy or burning the midnight oil…. It’s more about priorities, planning, and fiercely protecting your time.” — Margarita Tartakovsky

“My goal is no longer to get more done, but rather to have less to do.” — Francine Jay

- If disproportionate results come from one activity, then you must give that one activity disproportionate time.

- To achieve extraordinary results and experience greatness, time block these three things in the following order: 1. Time block your time off. 2. Time block your ONE Thing. 3. Time block your planning time.

- My recommendation is to block four hours a day. This isn’t a typo. I repeat: four hours a day. Honestly, that’s the minimum. If you can do more, then do it.

“Efficiency is doing the thing right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing.” — Peter Drucker

- If you don’t time block each day to do your ONE Thing, your ONE Thing won’t become a done thing.

1. Connect the dots. Extraordinary results become possible when where you want to go is completely aligned with what you do today. Tap into your purpose and allow that clarity to dictate your priorities. With your priorities clear, the only logical course is to go to work.

2. Time block your ONE Thing. The best way to make your ONE Thing happen is to make regular appointments with yourself. Block time early in the day, and block big chunks of it — no less than four hours! Think of it this way: If your time blocking were on trial, would your calendar contain enough evidence to convict you?

3. Protect your time block at all costs. Time blocking works only when your mantra is “Nothing and no one has permission to distract me from my ONE Thing.” Unfortunately, your resolve won’t keep the world from trying, so be creative when you can be and firm when you must. Your time block is the most important meeting of your day, so whatever it takes to protect it is what you have to do.

The people who achieve extraordinary results don’t achieve them by working more hours. They achieve them by getting more done in the hours they work.

Time blocking is one thing; productive time blocking is another.

“Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” — George Halas

- In one study, elite violinists had separated themselves from all others by each accumulating more than 10,000 hours of practice by age 20. Thus the rule. Many elite performers complete their journey in about ten years, which, if you do the math, is an average of about three hours of deliberate practice a day, every day, 365 days a year. Now, if your ONE Thing relates to work and you put in 250 workdays a year (five days a week for 50 weeks), to keep pace on your mastery journey you’ll need to average four hours a day. Sound familiar? It’s not a random number. That’s the amount of time you need to time block every day for your ONE Thing.

- The path of mastering something is the combination of not only doing the best you can do at it, but also doing it the best it can be done.

1. Commit to be your best. Extraordinary results happen only when you give the best you have to become the best you can be at your most important work. This is, in essence, the path to mastery — and because mastery takes time, it takes a commitment to achieve it.

2. Be purposeful about your ONE Thing. Move from “E” to “P.” Go on a quest for the models and systems that can take you the farthest. Don’t just settle for what comes naturally — be open to new thinking, new skills, and new relationships. If the path of mastery is a commitment to be your best, being purposeful is a commitment to adopt the best possible approach.

3. Take ownership of your outcomes. If extraordinary results are what you want, being a victim won’t work. Change occurs only when you’re accountable. So stay out of the passenger seat and always choose the driver’s side.

4. Find a coach. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who achieves extraordinary results without one.

“Focus is a matter of deciding what things you’re not going to do.” — John Carmack

- THE FOUR THIEVES OF PRODUCTIVITY

1. Inability to Say “No”

2. Fear of Chaos

3. Poor Health Habits

4. Environment Doesn’t Support Your Goals

- No one knew how to go small better than Steve Jobs.* He was famously as proud of the products he didn’t pursue as he was of the transformative products Apple created. In the two years after his return in 1997, he took the company from 350 products to ten. That’s 340 nos, not counting anything else proposed during that period. At the 1997 MacWorld Developers Conference, he explained, “When you think about focusing, you think, ‘Well, focusing is saying yes.’ No! Focusing is about saying no.” Jobs was after extraordinary results and he knew there was only one way to get there. Jobs was a “no” man.

- I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

- Messes are inevitable when you focus on just one thing.

- Focusing on ONE Thing has a guaranteed consequence: other things don’t get done.

- When you strive for greatness, chaos is guaranteed to show up. In fact, other areas of your life may experience chaos in direct proportion to the time you put in on your ONE Thing. It’s important for you to accept this instead of fighting it. Oscar-winning filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola warns us that “anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.”

- When people don’t understand the power of the ONE Thing, they try to do too much — and because this never works over time, they end up making a horrific deal with themselves. They go for success by sacrificing their health. They stay up late, miss meals or eat poorly, and completely ignore exercise. Personal energy becomes an afterthought; allowing health and home life to suffer becomes acceptable by default. Driven to hit goals, they think of cheating themselves as a good bet, but this gamble can’t pay off. Not only does this approach consistently short-circuit your best work, it’s dangerous to assume that health and hearth will be just waiting for you to come back and enjoy anytime in the future.

- THE HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE PERSON’S DAILY ENERGY PLAN

1. Meditate and pray for spiritual energy.

2. Eat right, exercise, and sleep sufficiently for physical energy.

3. Hug, kiss, and laugh with loved ones for emotional energy.

4. Set goals, plan, and calendar for mental energy.

5. Time block your ONE Thing for business energy.

1. Start saying “no.” Always remember that when you say yes to something, you’re saying no to everything else. It’s the essence of keeping a commitment. Start turning down other requests outright or saying, “No, for now” to distractions so that nothing detracts you from getting to your top priority. Learning to say no can and will liberate you. It’s how you’ll find the time for your ONE Thing.

2. Accept chaos. Recognize that pursuing your ONE Thing moves other things to the back burner. Loose ends can feel like snares, creating tangles in your path. This kind of chaos is unavoidable. Make peace with it. Learn to deal with it. The success you have accomplishing your ONE Thing will continually prove you made the right decision.

3. Manage your energy. Don’t sacrifice your health by trying to take on too much. Your body is an amazing machine, but it doesn’t come with a warranty, you can’t trade it in, and repairs can be costly. It’s important to manage your energy so you can do what you must do, achieve what you want to achieve, and live the life you want to live.

4. Take ownership of your environment. Make sure that the people around you and your physical surroundings support your goals. The right people in your life and the right physical environment on your daily path will support your efforts to get to your ONE Thing. When both are in alignment with your ONE Thing, they will supply the optimism and physical lift you need to make your ONE Thing happen.

Screenwriter Leo Rosten pulled everything together for us when he said, “I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.” Live with Purpose, Live by Priority, and Live for Productivity. Follow these three for the same reason you make the three commitments and avoid the four thieves — because you want to leave your mark. You want your life to matter.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that 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

- A life worth living might be measured in many ways, but the one way that stands above all others is living a life of no regrets.

The ONE Thing forces you to think big, work things through to create a list, prioritize that list so that a geometric progression can happen, and then hammer away on the first thing — the ONE Thing that starts your domino run.

So be prepared to live a new life!

And remember that the secret to extraordinary results is to ask a very big and specific question that leads you to one very small and tightly focused answer. If you try to do everything, you could wind up with nothing.

If you try to do just ONE Thing, the right ONE Thing, you could wind up with everything you ever wanted.

The ONE Thing is real. If you put it to work, it will work. So don’t delay. Ask yourself the question, “What’s the ONE Thing I can do right now to start using The ONE Thing in my life such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

And make doing the answer your first ONE Thing!

I hope you enjoy this summary!

Green lights to all the areas in your life!

Seyit