Focusing on The One Thing
If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one. — Russian Proverb.
I’m about 1/4 way through “The One Thing” by Gary Keller. It’s a book about honing your focus on only the important, and ruthlessly thrashing the rest out. Exceptional results is the effect of applied focus and effort on one thing combined with time.
The total effort and time we expend will be the same, whether we do it on 10 things, 5 things, 1 unimportant thing, or 1 important thing. But focusing it only on 1 important thing, will then lead to another important thing, but with more impact, and so forth.
For example — putting all your effort into a product mockup that is very different, incredibly well thought out, your own voice and vision, and then you practice the storytelling, make it shine. This leads to a wow moment for your client, and then an opportunity to speak to your company leadership about what you accomplished, which would then lead to a special assignment, which would then lead to a public presentation, etc.
If you originally divided your effort between your design project, and participating in an internal project on how to better run post-implementation reviews, and you’re facilitating a course on ‘better communication skills’ with a group of grads… your design project would get about 20% of your possible attention, and it’ll be fine, sure, it’s your job and you do it well, but it wouldn’t have the effect it could and it wouldn’t lead to another bigger opportunity. You’d still be lost in the middle.
In “The One Thing” he uses the example of a geometric domino effect, this is the phenomenon where you can line up dominos with tiles 50% bigger than the last. A small domino knocks over a bigger domino, and so forth, until on the 31st tile the domino would be the size of Mt. Everest and would successfully topple over. That first little domino created enough energy for a string of events of powerful force.
This resonated with me big time. Be ruthless about The One Thing, once your choose The One Thing, find The One Thing in that One Thing, the most important task in a list of tasks. The most important action in that task. Urgent doesn’t necessarily mean important. Important is what will make a difference, and lead to a bigger tile. Ignore all the rest.
This process is more complex with family life — where you need to be across multiple things and consistent engagement across time, regardless of the activity. However, even here, the One Thing should always be the intense focus on the activity you’re currently engaged in.
Read the book, it’s great. Also — it’s obviously more nuanced than this. You can’t ignore everything else all the time, you have to counter balance from time to time, but the point is still clear.
