Own Your ONE Thing

“It is not that we have too little time to do all the things we need to do , it is that we feel the need to do too many things in the time we have.”
― Gary Keller

Owning Your ONE Thing is about letting go of competing goals, and focusing first and foremost on THE most important goal each day. 

While the details of your work will inevitably vary from day to day and week to week, the overall impact of having a steady and singular approach brings tremendous simplicity and leverage to how you spend your time.

When you wake up is the easiest time to put the ONE Thing mindset into action. Start your most important and challenging task for the day right away! As Brian Tracy famously put it - “Eat That Frog”. This phrase comes from a Mark Twain story - if you start a day by eating a frog, everything else will seem pretty easy. Until you get that ONE task done, don’t feel the need to cram all your other tasks into the morning.

Research shows that we typically can do about 90 minutes to 2 hours of concentrated mental work before needing a break. Be sure to take a break and maybe rest or do some other completely unrelated task that doesn’t require a lot of attention. 

At first you might only be able to sustain one such period of deep work. But with practice you can get four or even six hours of deep and focused work completed each day. Not only will you be more productive - but since you are focusing on the ONE Thing, your efforts will be highly leveraged and start to build momentum!

Owning Your ONE Thing also means that you are responsible for keeping your priorities straight. Everyone else around you - friends, family, colleagues, volunteer groups, etc, will have no qualms about spending your time on other “urgent” matters. You must learn to politely say “no, I’m sorry, but  I’ve really got to get X or Y done first.” Eventually they will understand that your ONE Thing focus is a non-negotiable, and the so-called urgent issues will start to decline.

Make sure to work on your ONE Thing each day. All the other competing goals will gradually find their proper place, and your ONE Thing will start to bring tremendous results.