The ONE Thing

There is no such thing as the perfect productivity system. No matter how optimized your day is, or how many AI agents you have running 24/7, the harsh reality is that you’ll never truly be caught up. And that’s good news.

Oliver Burkeman wrote The Guardian's psychology column "This Column Will Change Your Life" for years before his four books on time and ambition. Four Thousand Weeks was an instant New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, and his follow-up, Meditations for Mortals, is one of Jay's favorite reads of the last two years.

Jay and Oliver take apart the fantasy underneath every productivity system: the day you're finally on top of everything. The more you optimize, the more work floods in to fill the space. It's the same reason widening a freeway attracts more cars. Burkeman, a self-described "old man yells at cloud" AI skeptic, has watched people feel guilty at family dinner because their AI agents are sitting idle. And the skill he says this all comes down to is one nobody teaches: "the tolerance of the anxiety of letting all the other things go undone for now."

In this episode, you'll learn:

- What to do if you're an anxious, insecure overachiever

- Why it's so uncomfortable to do nothing

- Whether to-do lists actually help

- Why you'll have to say no to things you genuinely want

- How much of your day you should plan in advance

Chapters:

(00:00) Introduction

(01:02) Waiting for Real Life to Start

(12:48) The Jevons Paradox

(17:33) The Discomfort of Doing Nothing

(20:57) The Productivity Paradox

(30:03) Jay vs. Oliver on Time Blocking

(33:58) Time Surfing: A Day With No Plan

(39:19) Just Actually Do It

Know someone who may find this episode helpful? Share it with them: https://the1thing.com/podcast-episode/youll-never-get-on-top-of-everything-and-thats-okay-with-oliver-burkeman/

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Links & Resources:

• Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

• Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

• Follow Oliver Burkeman on X

• Free Resources

Produced by NOVA

Look at your bookshelf. Business books, biographies, the ones everyone said you had to read. Now be honest: how many did you finish?

Jay Papasan should be the last person making this case. He's spent 30 years in business books - first as an editor at HarperCollins, then as coauthor of multiple award winning & bestselling nonfiction books. And this week he's telling you to put the business books down and pick up a novel.

Because somewhere between Gordon Gekko and hustle culture, business people decided that serious people read serious books - and quietly abandoned the oldest learning technology humans have. The research says that decision is costing you: focus, empathy, sleep, vocabulary, maybe even years of your life. And the fix can take fifteen minutes a night.

In this episode, you'll learn:

- Why the business books on most shelves have never actually been read

- Why a 12-year Yale study found readers 20% less likely to die

- How fiction rebuilds an attention span that's shrunk from three minutes to one

- How fiction trains the empathy that tells you what your customer will object to

- Which sci-fi novel Gary Keller called the best business book he'd read in ten years

- Why you never owe a book more than 50 pages

(0:00) Why Business People Stopped Reading Fiction

(2:54) The Best-Selling Business Books Are Secretly Fiction

(5:51) What Reading Does to Your Lifespan and Focus

(10:08) Fiction Improves Your Empathy

(13:45) How to Read 50 Books a Year

(18:52) Five Sci-Fi Gateways

(22:41) Historical Fiction

(23:51) Easy Reading

(26:49) The Challenge: One Book, 50 Pages

The 10 books:

Sci-fi - Dark Matter (Blake Crouch), The Martian and Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir), Ready Player One (Ernest Cline), Wool (Hugh Howey)

Historical fiction - Gates of Fire (Steven Pressfield), The Alice Network (Kate Quinn)

Great, easy-reading fiction - For Whom the Bell Tolls (Ernest Hemingway), Down River (John Hart), Beartown (Fredrik Backman)

Know someone who may find this episode helpful? Share it with them: https://the1thing.com/podcast-episode/put-down-the-business-book-read-fiction-instead/

The version of success you’ve been sold is really just stress with better branding.

Brad Stulberg has spent 20 years researching and reporting on the top 1% in their field - Olympians, powerlifters, bestselling authors - and has written 5 books on what he’s learned, including Peak Performance and his newest, The Way of Excellence.

In this episode, you'll learn:

- Why work-life balance fails

- Whether your obsession with work is fueling you or burning you out

- Why hitting a goal you've chased for years can leave you empty

- Why positive self-talk doesn't actually work

- Why you can't feel fear and curiosity at the same time

- How elite performers rest without feeling guilty

Know someone who may find this episode helpful? Share it with them: https://the1thing.com/podcast-episode/the-science-of-excellence-how-to-master-your-craft-passion-vs-obsession-the-myth-of-balance-and-more-w-brad-stulberg/

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Chapters:

[00:00] Intro

[01:47] What Actually Counts as Excellence?

[03:45] The Two Ingredients for Meaningful Work

[07:03] The Science of The Last Percent

[10:15] Why Fear and Curiosity Can't Coexist

[15:10] Self-Soothing Doesn’t Work. This Does.

[21:55] Good Passion vs. Obsessive Passion

[24:55] Why Does Winning Feel So Empty?

[28:03] Is An Identity Crisis Inevitable?

[35:02] The Importance of Recovery

[41:45] The Value of Inefficiency

[47:03] Your Challenge This Week

Links & Tools from This Episode:

• The ONE Thing Operating System

• Brad Stulberg

• Follow Brad Stulberg on X

• The Way of Excellence by Brad Stulberg

• Free Resources

Jay Papasan talks with Steve Kamb, founder of Nerd Fitness and author of How to Try Again, about what it takes to change course. Steve shares his PACT framework: Pause, Accept, Change, and Try, and explains why real change often feels messy before it feels clear.

Together, Jay and Steve explore identity shifts, false expectations, the myth of “normal,” and how small experiments can help you move toward a life that fits the season you’re actually in.

Know someone who may find this episode helpful? Share it with them: https://the1thing.com/podcast-episode/how-to-reinvent-yourself-a-4-step-framework-for-starting-over/

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We talk about:

[00:00] Starting Over & Trying Again

[04:51] Steve’s 4 Step Framework

[12:10] There Is No Normal

[19:52] Change is Uncomfortable

[24:59] Experiment Your Way Out

[42:43] Force Yourself to Be Mid

Links & Tools from This Episode:

• The ONE Thing Operating System

• How to Try Again by Steve Kamb

• Nerd Fitness

• Steve Kamb

• Free Resources

Produced by NOVA

Get The Someday Letter Worksheet: https://linkly.link/2ld7z

Most of us are comfortable setting annual goals. But what happens when you look 10 years into the future and let yourself dream without boundaries?

In this episode, Jay Papasan shares one of the most powerful tools used in The ONE Thing coaching program: the Someday Letter. It’s a simple but deeply clarifying exercise that asks you to write a letter to yourself from the future, describing the life, work, relationships, values, and adventures you want to create.

Jay opens up about his own resistance to the exercise, why it took him 18 months to finally do it, and the surprising clarity he found on the other side. He explains how the Someday Letter helps you work backward from a future vision, make better decisions in the present, and stop chasing short-term gains that don’t lead where you actually want to go.

Know someone who may find this episode helpful? Share it with them: https://the1thing.com/podcast-episode/a-deep-dive-on-our-most-impactful-coaching-tool/

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We talk about:

[00:00] Why This Tool is So Powerful

[3:35] How to Write Your Someday Letter

[16:10] The ONE Thing Challenge

Links & Tools from This Episode:

• The ONE Thing Operating System

• The Someday Letter Workbook

• Free Resources

Produced by NOVA