In order to succeed you only have to do ONE Thing well. Ask yourself, “What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” Respect that you have a limited supply of willpower and build your habits based on that knowledge.

#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.

By framing important assets of your life as “energies” it’s easier to find action steps towards them. Look for activities that refuel these energies.

#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.

These are the lies that get into our heads and, repeated often enough, becomes the operational principles driving us the wrong way. Put these lies to bed.

#Everything does not matter equally

No matter how talented people are: no two are ever equal. Equality is a lie. As kids we didn’t have a choice as to when to do things. We did them as they came up:

  • It’s breakfast time.
  • It’s time to do homework.
  • It’s time to go to school.

As adults, everything is discretionary. Everything is a choice of ours. We need to choose. How do we make good decisions?

#The domino effect

Domino bricks have the capability to topple another domino that is actually 50 percent larger. That means that a single domino brick could bring down another brick twice its size which in turn could take another brick twice its size and so on. One domino brick would have the possibility to take down the Eiffel Tower after 23 bricks. That’s mind blowing.

#The success habit

Ask the focusing question and frame it to the most important areas of your life. The areas could be:

  • Spiritual life
  • Physical health
  • Personal life
  • Key relationships
  • Job
  • Business
  • Finance life Then ask what’s the ONE Thing to do for each area that would make everything else easier or unnecessary. For spiritual life for example: “What’s the one thing I can do to help others?”

#A disciplined life

When you see people who look like “disciplined” people, you’re actually seeing people who have trained a handful of habits into their lives. Habits are only hard in the beginning. By applying selective discipline towards a goal for 66 days will make the habit easier and easier to sustain. Don’t be a disciplined person. Be a person of powerful habits. Develop them one at a time, over time. Then stick to it.

#The focusing question

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

By asking the focusing question you gain your big picture (what’s my one thing?) and the small focus (what’s my one thing right now?)

Break the question down into three parts:

  1. What’s the one thing I can do — this sparks focused attention. It forces you toward something specific.
  2. such that by doing it, The bridge between just doing something and doing something for a specific purpose.
  3. everything else will be easier or unnecessary? The ultimate leverage test. When you do this ONE thing, everything else you could do to accomplish your goal will be easier or maybe no longer necessary.

#Big ideas

  1. Go small. Never focus on being busy; focus on being productive. Allow what matters most to drive your day.
  2. Go extreme. Keep peeling the layers of the onion until you have the ONE thing. That core activity goes to the top of your success list.
  3. Say no. Always 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. Don’t fall prey to the notion that everything has to be done. Checking things off your list is not what success is about. Things don’t matter equally. Success is found in doing what matters most.

#Extreme Pareto

Take The Pareto Principle to the next level. Take your to-do list and turn it into a success list. A to-do list contains possible could’s while a success list only contains should’s. Identify the 20 percent, then go smaller by finding the vital few of the vital few. You will end up with the single most important thing you need to do.

#Multitasking is a lie

Multitasking is not a way of life, it’s a way of lie. Multitasking didn’t appear as a term until the 1960s. It was used to describe computers, not people. Multitasking is about multiple tasks alternately sharing one resource. You can never focus on two things at once, while it is possible to do them both at once, you can only focus on one or the other. You need reorientation every time you’re task switching. This comes with the cost of lost effectiveness and the draining of the mind. Researchers estimate we lose 28 percent of an average workday to multitasking ineffectiveness.

#The marshmallow test

In the early 1970s, researcher Walter Mischel conducted a study at Stanford University. Kids were offered one of three treats—a pretzel, a cookie, or a marshmallow. The kids were told that they could wait 15 minutes and be awarded a second treat. One treat now or two later. On average the kid held out less than three minutes. (Delay gratification)

#Delay gratification

Willpower or the ability to delay gratification is a huge indicator of future success. Before you do what you want to do, do what you have to do, and use the want as a reward for doing the thing you needed to do (📚 Atomic Habits).

#Respect your willpower

Make doing what matters when your willpower is at its highest, normally in the mornings or after a break. Think about it. Pay attention to it. Don’t spread your willpower too thin. Respect that you have a limited supply of it so decide what matters and reserve your willpower for it. Never let what matters most be compromised because of an underfueled brain. Eat right and regularly. Don’t fight you willpower. Accept it and build your days around it. Willpower is not on will-call.

#Goal setting to the now

Set a future goal and methodically drill down to what you should be doing right now. Think of it a bit like a Russian matryoshka doll in that your ONE Thing “right now” is nested inside your ONE Thing today, which is nested inside your ONE Thing this week etc.

#Time blocking

Time blocking is a way of being proactive with your time. Instead of reacting to whatever is in front of you, take some time ahead and make a plan. Be protective of your time. Block out time for your one thing and protect it with a vengeance. It’s the thing you must do before anything else. When it’s done you can spend the rest of the day doing “everything else.”

#Brain dump distractions

Whenever you’re in a focused time slot and something pops into your head: instead of rushing on to check on that thing, write it down on a piece of paper. Get it out of your system. You can get back to it later, but you’ve got it out of your mind and can return with your work.