About Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
Gary Keller is executive chairman of both kwx, a holding company that represents the collection of all Keller Williams affiliates and subsidiaries, and of Keller Williams Realty, Inc. Several of his books have been bestsellers, and held positions on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal lists. Collectively his titles have sold more than 5.4 million copies worldwide.
Before Jay Papasan co-authored the bestselling Millionaire Real Estate series with Gary Keller, he worked as an editor at Harper Collins Publishers. There he worked on such best-selling books as Body-for-Life by Bill Phillips and Go for the Goal by Mia Hamm. Jay is a keynote speaker. Jay also co-owns a successful real estate team affiliated with Keller Williams Realty with his wife Wendy in Austin, TX.
About The Book
“You have only so much time and energy, so when you spread yourself out, you end up spread thin. You want your achievements to add up, but that actually takes subtraction, not addition. You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects. The problem with trying to do too much is that even if it works, adding more to your work and your life without cutting anything brings a lot of bad with it: missed deadlines, disappointing results, high stress, long hours, lost sleep, poor diet, no exercise, and missed moments with family and friends—all in the name of going after something that is easier to get than you might imagine.
Going small is a simple approach to extraordinary results, and it works. It works all the time, anywhere and on anything. Why? Because it has only one purpose – to ultimately get you to the point.
When you go as small as possible, you’ll be starting at one thing. And that’s the point.”
Like Essentialism by Greg McKeown, The One Thing came into my life at exactly the right moment. I was juggling too much, wishing (almost desperately) for a 30-hour day to fit all my commitments, ambitions, and interests. This book did something unexpected: it didn’t hype me up to do more. It grounded me. And somehow, that felt incredibly liberating.
Gary Keller makes a deceptively simple argument: success doesn’t come from doing everything well. It comes from identifying the one thing that truly matters right now and then giving it your full attention and energy.
This book has firmly earned a place on my all-time favourites list. It’s inspirational without being fluffy, practical without being rigid, and packed with wisdom you can actually use. And the best part? Its core idea applies everywhere – work, parenting, relationships, health, life.
I’d recommend The One Thing not only to entrepreneurs and high achievers, but especially to working, ambitious parents who want to “have it all” (spoiler: you can’t – and that’s actually the point).
The book is rich with insights, and I can’t wait to share some of my favourites with you.
Let’s dive in.
Key Insights
The Domino Effect: Why Extraordinary Results Start With One Small Action
“So when you think about success, shoot for the moon. The moon is reachable if you prioritize everything and put all of your energy into accomplishing the most important thing. Getting extraordinary results is all about creating a domino effect in your life.
Toppling dominoes is pretty straightforward. You line them up and tip over the first one. In the real world, though, it’s a bit more complicated. The challenge is that life doesn’t line everything up for us and say, “Here’s where you should start.” Highly successful people know this. So every day they line up their priorities anew, find the lead domino, and whack away at it until it falls. […]
Extraordinary success is sequential, not simultaneous.”
This idea sets the tone for the entire book and I absolutely love it.
Instead of chasing ten goals at once and wondering why nothing really moves, Keller invites us to think differently. Picture your biggest goal as the last domino in a long line. To knock it down, you don’t run at it headfirst. You focus on the smallest, closest domino – the one that, once tipped, makes the next one inevitable. Then the next. And the next.
There’s no overnight success here. No dramatic leap. Just small, intentional, almost boring actions – done consistently – that quietly build momentum. Purposeful steps beat frantic effort every time.
This insight strongly echoes Darren Hardy’s The Compound Effect, where tiny choices, repeated daily, compound into massive results over time. Different framing, same truth: progress isn’t flashy – but it’s powerful.
And that naturally leads us to the next insight.
From To-Do Lists to Success Lists: How to Focus on What Actually Matters
“Instead of a to-do list, you need a success list—a list that is purposefully created around extraordinary results.”
This idea sounds simple. Almost obvious. And yet, it completely reframes how most of us approach our days.
Before Keller gets there, he clears the ground by calling out what he calls the six lies between you and success:
- Everything matters equally
- Multitasking
- A disciplined life
- Willpower is always on will-call
- A balanced life
- Big is bad
The Success List appears right at the heart of one of the most important truths in the book: not everything matters equally. In fact, most things don’t matter much at all. This was one of the biggest insights for me and I started using it immediately.
A traditional to-do list treats every task like it deserves your time and energy. Answer the email. Do the laundry. Finish the report. Book the dentist. Everything sits side by side, pretending to be equally important. No wonder we end the day exhausted but strangely unsatisfied.
A Success List is different. It’s ruthless – in a good way. It’s built only around the actions that actually move the needle toward your one most important goal.
Keller grounds this idea in the well-known Pareto principle:
“The majority of what you want will come from the minority of what you do. Extraordinary results are disproportionately created by fewer actions than most realize.”
In other words: most of your results come from very few actions. Your job isn’t to do more, but to figure out which few actually matter.
So the goal becomes simple (but not easy): Get crystal clear on the tasks that directly lead to your most important outcome. Write only those on your Success List. Then work through them – one by one – until the goal is done.
And honestly? This single shift – from managing everything to prioritising what matters – can change how you work, how you parent, and how you live.
You Don’t Need More Discipline – You Need the Right Habit
“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. That’s it. That’s all the discipline you need. As this habit becomes part of your life, you’ll start looking like a disciplined person, but you won’t be one.”
This insight quietly dismantles one of the biggest productivity myths out there: that successful people are somehow more disciplined than the rest of us.
Keller offers a far more humane (and realistic) approach. Instead of trying to become a hyper-disciplined, iron-willed version of yourself, you focus on one habit that actually moves you toward your goal. Then you apply just enough discipline to make that habit stick. Not forever. Just long enough for it to become automatic.
That’s the key shift. Discipline isn’t the goal – it’s the starter motor.
Once the right habit is in place, it stops requiring willpower. It becomes a system that quietly runs in the background, pulling you forward even on tired, messy, unmotivated days. You don’t feel disciplined – but from the outside, it looks like you are.
This idea strongly echoes Atomic Habits by James Clear: don’t obsess over goals, build systems. Systems are what carry you when motivation fades and life gets noisy.
And that’s how real, sustainable success is built – especially for parents who already have enough demands on their discipline as it is.
Willpower Is Limited: Why Your Most Important Work Should Happen in the Morning
“Think of willpower like the power bar on your cell phone. Every morning you start out with a full charge. As the day goes on, every time you draw on it you’re using it up. So as your green bar shrinks, so does your resolve, and when it eventually goes red, you’re done. Willpower has a limited battery life but can be recharged with some downtime. […]
When it comes to willpower, timing is everything. You will need your willpower at full strength to ensure that when you’re doing the right thing, you don’t let anything distract you or steer you away from it. Then you need enough willpower the rest of the day to either support or avoid sabotaging what you’ve done. That’s all the willpower you need to be successful. So, if you want to get the most out of your day, do your most important work—your ONE Thing—early, before your willpower is drawn down. Since your self-control will be sapped throughout the day, use it when it’s at full strength on what matters most.”
This metaphor is painfully accurate. We don’t lose motivation because we’re lazy, we lose it because we’ve spent it all by noon.
Keller’s point is simple and practical: it’s much easier to resist distraction and temptation when your willpower battery is still full. So instead of warming up your day with emails, errands, and low-stakes tasks, you tackle your most important work first – before decision fatigue kicks in.
Think of it as eating your mental frog early. Not because it’s fun, but because everything else gets easier once it’s done.
This idea is grounded in the work of Walter Mischel, best known for The Marshmallow Test, which explores how self-control works, why it’s limited, and how context and timing matter more than brute force.
Bottom line?
Protect your mornings. Spend your best willpower on your ONE Thing.
The rest of the day can live off what you’ve already put in place.
P.S. I’m reading Mischel’s work now – notes coming soon. Stay tuned and subscribe to my newsletter to read it first.
There Is No Work-Life Balance – Only Conscious Counterbalancing
“Nothing ever achieves absolute balance. Nothing. No matter how imperceptible it might be, what appears to be a state of balance is something entirely different—an act of balancing. […]
The act of living a full life by giving time to what matters is a balancing act. Extraordinary results require focused attention and time. Time on one thing means time away from another. This makes balance impossible.”
This is where Keller really challenges one of our most comforting illusions: the idea of a perfectly balanced life.
You can’t have everything. And magic almost never happens in the middle – it happens at the extremes. Growth, mastery, and extraordinary results demand periods of imbalance. The real skill isn’t staying balanced; it’s learning how to counterbalance without dropping everything else on the floor.
“To achieve an extraordinary result you must choose what matters most and give it all the time it demands. This requires getting extremely out of balance in relation to all other work issues, with only infrequent counterbalancing to address them. In your personal world, awareness is the essential ingredient.”
The moment you choose a true priority, you automatically step out of balance. And that’s not a failure, but rather the cost of intention.
I’ve lived this firsthand. When my children were little, I chose to prioritise family and presence. My career didn’t accelerate during those years – and that was a conscious trade-off. Now that my boys are older and need less of my constant attention, I can shift the weight back toward my work goals. Different season, different imbalance.
Keller’s advice here is refreshingly practical: Don’t try to “balance everything at once.” Instead, separate your work goals and life goals into two distinct buckets. Each one needs its own counterbalancing strategy, its own rhythms, and its own expectations.
Balance isn’t a destination. It’s an ongoing act – one conscious decision at a time.
The Focusing Question: One Question That Cuts Through Overwhelm
“What’s the ONE Thing I can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
This question is the engine of the entire book.
It works at every level – big-picture life decisions and small, day-to-day focus moments. Ask it honestly, and it immediately cuts through noise, overwhelm, and fake urgency. It shows you how big your life could be – and, at the same time, how small you must go to actually get there. This is the question that leads you to the first domino.
And the wording matters more than it seems. Not could. Not should. But can. Something you have the power to do right now.
The final part of the question is the ultimate leverage test: If I do this, will it make everything else easier – or irrelevant? If the answer is yes, you’ve found your move.
The task, then, is simple and demanding: identify that first domino and focus on it exclusively until it falls.
Make this question part of your morning routine. Ask it before emails, before scrolling, before the day starts making decisions for you.
One clear question.
One clear action.
Everything else follows.
Purpose Before Priority: How Your Big Why Shapes Your Daily Actions
“Your big ONE Thing is your purpose and your small ONE Thing is the priority you take action on to achieve it. The most productive people start with purpose and use it like a compass. They allow purpose to be the guiding force in determining the priority that drives their actions. This is the straightest path to extraordinary results.”
This is where everything clicks. Your purpose shapes who you are and how you show up in the world. It answers the deeper question before you ever get to tactics or productivity hacks. As Keller puts it:
“Who we are and where we want to go determine what we do and what we accomplish.”
Once your purpose is clear, priorities stop being confusing. You simply connect today to all your tomorrows. One meaningful action at a time.
So here’s the real work:
What’s your purpose?
Your 10-year goal?
5 years? 3? 1 year?
This month? This week?
Start big. Then work your way down to the next small, doable step.
P.S. Research backs this up. Angela Duckworth shows that having a clear sense of purpose fuels grit and sustained focus. If you want to explore the science behind purpose and flourishing, check out our notes on Flourish by Martin Seligman and The Path to Purpose by William Damon.
Time Blocking: How to Protect Your ONE Thing in a Busy Life
“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.”
This is where clarity turns into execution. If something truly matters, it goes in your calendar. If it’s not scheduled, it’s optional. And optional things don’t survive busy lives.
I first came across time blocking in Deep Work by Cal Newport, and it completely changed how I work.
Keller keeps it simple and strategic. To achieve extraordinary results, block your time in this order:
- Time off – rest isn’t a reward, it’s a requirement
- Your ONE Thing – the work that actually moves the needle
- Planning time – so priorities don’t get decided for you
Another key rule: do your most important, creative work in the morning when your energy and focus are highest. Leave admin, emails, and low-stakes tasks for the afternoon.
And when you feel yourself drifting? Go back to the focusing question. It’s your guardrail.
P.S. For more practical productivity tools, check out our notes on Deep Work and Eat That Frog.
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”
At the end of the book, Keller names the Four Thieves of Productivity – and honestly, it reads like a checklist of what quietly sabotages parental productivity every single day.
Saying yes when you should say no. Avoiding short-term chaos (tears, pushback, discomfort) at the cost of long-term progress. Running on empty because sleep, movement, and food come last. And trying to focus in environments that practically beg you to get distracted.
None of these are about laziness. They’re about systems, boundaries, and awareness.
If you’re a parent who feels busy but not effective, overwhelmed but still falling behind, these four thieves are worth sitting with. Fix even one – and everything else gets easier.
The Two Wolves: How Mindset Determines Your Focus and Follow-Through
“One evening an elder Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside all people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us. One is Fear. It carries anxiety, concern, uncertainty, hesitancy, indecision and inaction. The other is Faith. It brings calm, conviction, confidence, enthusiasm, decisiveness, excitement and action.” The grandson thought about it for a moment and then meekly asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee replied, “The one you feed.”
I just love this little story – a perfect illustration of the power of our mindset!
Productivity, focus, even parenting – none of it starts with better tools. It starts with mindset. With the thoughts you rehearse, the narratives you repeat, and the habits you reinforce on hard days.
So here’s the real question:
Which wolf are you feeding today?
Action Steps For You
- Go small. Resist the urge to do more. Being busy is easy; being effective takes courage. Choose the one thing that truly moves your life forward and give it your full attention. Go small. Go focused. Go all in.
- Begin every day with the Focusing Question. Before emails, before scrolling, before the world starts making decisions for you, ask: “What’s the ONE Thing I can do today such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” This question clears the noise. It sharpens your direction. And over time, it turns effort into momentum.
- Discover your Big Why. Ask yourself what truly drives you. What kind of person do you want to be? What kind of life do you want to build? If purpose feels too big right now, choose a direction. Purpose often reveals itself after we start moving.
Quotes From The Book
“When you see someone who has a lot of knowledge, they learned it over time. When you see someone who has a lot of skills, they developed them over time. When you see someone who has done a lot, they accomplished it over time. When you see someone who has a lot of money, they earned it over time. The key is over time. Success is built sequentially. It’s one thing at a time.”
“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.”
“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.”
“To achieve an extraordinary result you must choose what matters most and give it all the time it demands. This requires getting extremely out of balance in relation to all other work issues, with only infrequent counterbalancing to address them. In your personal world, awareness is the essential ingredient.”
“What you build today will either empower or restrict you tomorrow.”
“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” © Will Rogers
