The ONE Thing

by Gary Keller

  Teaching is my ONE Thing and has been for almost 30 years. At first it was teaching clients about the market and how to make great decisions. Next, it was teaching salespeople in the classroom, during sales meetings, and one-on-one. Later it was teaching business classes. Then it became teaching high performers models and strategies for high achievement, and the last ten years it has been teaching seminars on specific life-building principles. What I teach is what I then coach and is supported by what I write.

  Pick a direction, start marching down that path, and see how you like it. Time brings clarity and if you find you don’t like it, you can always change your mind. It’s your life.

  14 LIVE BY PRIORITY

  “Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.”

  —Alan Lakein

  “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

  “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

  “I don’t much care where—” said Alice.

  “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

  Alice’s classic encounter with the Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll’s Alices Adventures in Wonderland reveals the close connection between purpose and priority. Live with purpose and you know where you want to go. Live by priority and you’ll know what to do to get there.

  When each day begins, we each have a choice. We can ask, “What shall I do?” or “What should I do?” Without direction, without purpose, whatever you “shall do” will always get you somewhere. But when you’re going somewhere on purpose, there will always be something you “should do” that will get you where you must go. When your life is on purpose, living by priority takes precedence.

  GOAL SETTING TO THE NOW

  As Ebenezer Scrooge profoundly discovered, our life is driven by the purpose we give it. But there’s a catch even he had to confront. Purpose has the power to shape our lives only in direct proportion to the power of the priority we connect it to. Purpose without priority is powerless.

  To be precise, the word is priority—not priorities—and it originated in the 14th century from the Latin prior, meaning “first.” If something mattered the most it was a “priority.” Curiously, priority remained unpluralized until around the 20th century, when the world apparently demoted it to mean generally “something that matters” and the plural “priorities” appeared. With the loss of its initial intent, a wide variety of sayings like “most pressing matter,” “prime concern,” and “on the front burner” pitched in to recapture the essence of the original. Today, we elevate priority to its former meaning by adding “highest,” “top,” “first,” “main,” and “most important” in front of it. It would seem priority has traveled an interesting road.

  So, watch your language. You may have many ways to talk about priority, but no matter the words you choose, to achieve extraordinary results your meaning must be the same—ONE Thing.

  Whenever I teach goal setting I make it my top priority to show how a goal and a priority work together. I do this by asking, “Why do we set goals and create plans?” In spite of all the good answers I get, the truth is we have goals and plans for only one reason—to be appropriate in the moments of our lives that matter. While we may pull from the past and forecast the future, our only reality is the present moment. Right NOW is all we have to work with. Our past is but a former now, our future a potential one. To drive this point home, I started referring to the way to create a powerful priority as “Goal Setting to the Now” to emphasize why we were creating a priority in the first place.

  The truth about success is that our ability to achieve extraordinary results in the future lies in stringing together powerful moments, one after the other. What you do in any given moment determines what you experience in the next. Your “present now” and all “future nows” are undeniably determined by the priority you live in the moment. The deciding factor in determining how you set that priority is who wins the battle between your present and future selves.

  If you’re offered a choice of $100 today or $200 next year, which would you choose? The $200, right? You would if your goal were to make the most money from the opportunity. Strangely, most people don’t make that choice.

  Economists have long known that even though people prefer big rewards over small ones, they have an even stronger preference for present rewards over future ones—even when the future rewards are MUCH BIGGER. It’s an ordinary occurrence, oddly named hyperbolic discounting—the further away a reward is in the future, the smaller the immediate motivation to achieve it. Maybe it’s because objects that are farther away appear smaller, so people mistakenly assume they really are and discount their value. That might explain why so many people would actually choose the $100 today over twice the amount in the future. Their “present bias” overrides logic, and they allow a big future with potentially extraordinary results to get away Now imagine the devastating impact living this way every day could have on your future self. Remember our conversation on delayed gratification? Turns out that what starts out as marshmallows can later cost you much more.

  We need a simple way of thinking to save us from ourselves, set the right priority, and move closer toward accomplishing our purpose.

  Goal Setting to the Now will get you there.

  By thinking through the filter of Goal Setting to the Now, you set a future goal and then methodically drill down to what you should be doing right now. It can be a little 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, which is nested inside your ONE Thing this month... . It’s how a small thing can actually build up to a big one.

  You’re lining up your dominoes.

  FIG. 24 Future purpose connects to present priority.

  To understand how Goal Setting to the Now will guide your thinking and determine your most important priority, read this out loud to yourself:

  Based on my someday goal, what’s the ONE Thing I can do in the next five years to be on track to achieve it? Now, based on my five-year goal, what’s the ONE Thing I can do this year to be on track to achieve my five-year goal, so that I’m on track to achieve my someday goal? Now, based on my goal this year, what’s the ONE Thing I can do this month so I’m on track to achieve my goal this year, so I’m on track to achieve my five-year goal, so I’m on track to achieve my someday goal? Now, based on my goal this month, what’s the ONE Thing I can do this week so I’m on track to achieve my goal this month, so I’m on track to achieve my goal this year, so I’m on track to achieve my five-year goal, so I’m on track to achieve my someday goal? Now, based on my goal this week, what’s the ONE Thing I can do today so I’m on track to achieve my goal this week, so I’m on track to achieve my goal this month, so I’m on track to achieve my goal this year, so I’m on track to achieve my five-year goal, so I’m on track to achieve my someday goal? So, based on my goal today, what’s the ONE Thing I can do right NOW so I’m on track to achieve my goal today, so I’m on track to achieve my goal this week, so I’m on track to achieve my goal this month, so I’m on track to achieve my goal this year, so I’m on track to achieve my five-year goal, so I’m on track to achieve my someday goal?

  I hope you hung in there and read the entire thing. Why? Because you’re training your mind how to think, how to connect one goal with the next over time until you know the most important thing you must do right NOW. You’re learning how to think big—but go small.

  To prove its value, just skip the steps by asking yourself, “What’s the ONE Thing I can do right now so I’m on track to achieve my someday goal?” Doesn’t work. The moment is too far from the future for you to clearly see your key priority In fact, you can keep adding back in today, this week, and so on, but you won’t see the powerful priority you seek until you’ve added back in all the steps. It’s why most people never get close to their goals. They haven’t conn
ected today to all the tomorrows it will take to get there.

  Connect today to all your tomorrows. It matters.

  Research backs this up. In three separate studies, psychologists observed 262 students to see the impact of visualization on outcomes. The students were asked to visualize in one of two ways: Those in one group were told to visualize the outcome (like getting an “A” on an exam) and the others were asked to visualize the process needed to achieve a desired outcome (like all of the study sessions needed to earn that “A” on the exam). In the end, students who visualized the process performed better across the board—they studied earlier and more frequently and earned higher grades than those who simply visualized the outcome.

  People tend to be overly optimistic about what they can accomplish, and therefore most don’t think things all the way through. Researchers call this the “planning fallacy” Visualizing the process—breaking a big goal down into the steps needed to achieve it—helps engage the strategic thinking you need to plan for and achieve extraordinary results. This is why Goal Setting to the Now really works.

  FIG. 25 Living a domino run.

  I have this dialogue with people every day. It’s particularly effective when they ask me what they should do. I turn it around and say, “Before I answer your question, let me ask you something: Where are you going, and where do you want to be someday?” Without fail, as I walk them through Goal Setting to the Now, they catch on quickly and come up with their own answers, and by the time they tell me the ONE Thing they should be doing right now, I laughingly ask, “So why are you still talking to me?”

  Your last step is to write down your answers. Much has been written about writing down goals and for a very good reason—it works.

  In 2008, Dr. Gail Matthews of the Dominican University of California, recruited 267 participants from a wide range of professions (lawyers, accountants, nonprofit employees, marketers, etc.) and a variety of countries. Those who wrote down their goals were 39.5 percent more likely to accomplish them. Writing down your goals and your most important priority is your final step to living by priority.

  BIG IDEAS

  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.

  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

  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.

  15 LIVE FOR PRODUCTIVITY

  “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

  Ebenezer Scrooge’s story might have been a footnote in literary history except for this—he acted. Passionate about his new purpose and empowered by a priority that fulfilled it, he got up and got going.

  Productive action transforms lives.

  “Let’s go be productive!” will never be heard in the movies as the cavalry takes the hill. It’s not the first choice a coach, manager, or general uses as a rallying cry to arouse deep emotion and inspire the troops. It’s not what you say to yourself as you take a deep breath and dive into a challenge or face competition. And Dickens never had Scrooge utter these words as he took command of his transformed life. Yet productive is exactly what Scrooge was, and there’s no better word than productivity to describe what you want from what you do when the outcome matters.

  We are always doing something—working, playing, eating, sleeping, standing, sitting, breathing. If we’re alive, we’re doing something. Even if we’re doing nothing, that’s something. Every minute of every day, the question is never will we be doing something, but rather what that something is we’ll be doing. Sometimes what we do doesn’t matter, but sometimes it does. And when it does, what we do defines our life more than anything else. In the end, putting together a life of extraordinary results simply comes down to getting the most out of what you do, when what you do matters.

  Living for productivity produces extraordinary results.

  Whenever I teach productivity I always start by asking, “What type of time-managing system do you use?” The answers are as varied as the number of people in the room: paper calendar, electronic calendar, Day-Timer, At-A-Glance weekly planner... you name it and I hear it. I then ask, “So how did you choose yours?” The reasons cited come in every shape, size, color, price, and criteria imaginable. But the students invariably describe the format, not the function—what they are, not how they work. So when I say, “That’s great, but what kind of system do you use?” the answer is always the same: “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if everyone has the same amount of time and yet some earn more than others,” I ask, “can we then say that it’s how we use our time that determines the money we make?” Everyone always agrees, so I continue: “If this is true, that time is money, then the best way to describe a time-managing system might just be by the money it makes. So, do you think you’re using the $10,000-a-year system? The $20,000-a-year system? The $50,000-, $100,000-, or $500,000-a-year system? Are you using the $1,000,000-plus system?”

  Silence.

  Until inevitably someone asks, “How do we know?”

  To which I reply, “How much do you make?”

  If money is a metaphor for producing results, then it’s clear—a time-managing system’s success can be judged by the productivity it produces.

  The strange thing about my life is that I’ve never worked for anyone who wasn’t a millionaire or didn’t become one. I didn’t set out for this to happen. It just did. And the most important thing I learned from these experiences is that the most successful people are the most productive people.

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

  —Francine Jay

  Productive people get more done, achieve better results, and earn far more in their hours than the rest. They do so because they devote maximum time to being productive on their top priority, their ONE Thing. They time block their ONE Thing and then protect their time blocks with a vengeance. They’ve connected the dots between working their time blocks consistently and the extra-ordinary results they seek.

  FIG. 26 Make an appointment with yourself and keep it!

  TIME BLOCKING

  I often say that I come from a “long line of lethargic people.” This is usually good for a laugh, but it’s also true. It seems at times that my genes just might have more in common with the tortoise than the hare. On the other hand, some of the people I work with are so blessed with energy they actually vibrate. Amazingly, they’re able to work long hours over extended periods and never wear down. When I try to follow suit, in less than a week my body simply falls apart. I’ve discovered that, no matter how hard I try, I can’t use more time as my main means of doing more. It’s just not physically possible for me. So, given my constraints, I’ve had to find a way to be highly productive in the hours I can put in.

  The solution? Time blocking.

  Most people think there’s never enough time to be successful, but there is when you block it. Time blocking is a very results-oriented way of viewing and using time. It’s a way of making sure that what has to be done gets done. Alexander Graham Bell said, “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” Time blocking harnes
ses your energy and centers it on your most important work. It’s productivity’s greatest power tool.

  So, go to your calendar and block off all the time you need to accomplish your ONE Thing. If it’s a onetime ONE Thing, block off the appropriate hours and days. If it’s a regular thing, block off the appropriate time every day so it becomes a habit. Everything else—other projects, paperwork, e-mail, calls, correspondence, meetings, and all the other stuff— must wait. When you time block like this, you’re creating the most productive day possible in a way that’s repeatable every day for the rest of your life.

  Unfortunately, if you’re like most individuals, your typical day might look something like figure 27, when you find yourself with less and less time to focus on what matters most.

  The most productive people’s day is dramatically different (figure 28).

  FIG. 27 Everything Else dominates your day!

  If disproportionate results come from one activity, then you must give that one activity disproportionate time. Each and every day, ask this Focusing Question for your blocked time: “Today, what’s the ONE Thing I can do for my ONE Thing such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” When you find the answer, you’ll be doing the most leveraged activity for your most leveraged work.

  This is how results become extraordinary.

  FIG. 28 Your ONE Thing gets the time of day it deserves!