The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

Keller directly critiques the idea of work-life balance, which suggests that optimizing your time means giving work and personal life proportionally equal attention. He suggests that this practice leads to neither getting the attention it deserves. He instead suggests counterbalancing, or acting on your priorities while recognizing that by doing so, “[Y]ou’ll automatically go out of balance, giving more time to one thing over another” (82). The key, Keller suggests, is managing your time in such a way that this imbalance is itself limited and does not take over your life, allowing you to attend to all aspects of your life as they require.

The Focusing Question is a central concept of Keller’s book because it is the basic means by which a person can prioritize effectively to achieve their goals. Keller formulates the question as, “What’s the One Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” (106). Asking this question consistently and frequently will help you to put the most important tasks first and eliminate unimportant concerns, ultimately facilitating success.