Let me ask you this question…

What’s the most common excuse people often say when they want to decline an invitation?

You can guess, but you will agree with me on this one sentence:

“I’m too busy”

People are getting busier and busier these days. Yeah, “so little time, so many things to do”. No wonder why people get stressed out.

If you look around, you will see that people always complain that they are too busy and have so many things to do that 24-hour day seems not enough for them…and it’s understandable. Like most of people you may be having a 9-5 job (9-5 is just a way of saying, I see many people spending 12 or 20 hours for working a day), a small family and kids to take care (if you’re married)…you name it.

What would we then do when we have so many things in our to-do list?

  • We work harder
  • We try to do more things
  • We multi-task

Does this solve our problem completely? More often, the answer is NO.

Why? We may see how the computer processes the “multi-tasking” and we believe we should do the same too. Multi-tasking sounds like a good idea, but there’s one problem:

Heck, we are not computers.

Focusing on many things at a time will end up half-complete tasks, make us burned-out  and it will lead to nowhere.

What if I tell you there’s a way to solve your problem and there’s a secret to get the extraordinary results in everything you do?

I’ve recently read a book and it helps me realize how wrong I have been doing things. In this book, the author shares a simple secret to get extraordinary results in everything we do.

The book I’m talking about is “The One thing” by Garry Keller.

one_thing

The whole book is a journey to help you find the answer for this single question:

“What’s the ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

The idea of the book is to direct you to focus on one thing and do it as best as you can instead of chasing different targets at the same time.

“If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one”.

This makes perfect sense. If you are chasing or doing many things, your power, your focus will be drained out quickly and you eventually will achieve nothing.

“The One Thing” is so great that it becomes:

  • #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller
  • #1 Amazon Bestseller
  • New York Times Bestseller
  • USA Today Bestseller

The book also receives more than 1000 reviews and is rated 4.5 star. There’s no doubt about the quality of this book.

The book structure is simple and easy to read. As a slow reader, it took me 4-5 hours to read.

I’ve just read this book once, to be honest, I still need some time to fully digest what’s being conveyed in the book, but my gut-feeling this is a must read for all of us. I will definitely read this book one more time.

Alright, so if you are struggling with your life and haven’t achieved the result as you wish, I highly recommend “The One Thing“.

Go ahead and check it out!

Now, as a tester, how this book can help you do better testing?

My suggestion is to ask yourself these two questions when you do testing:

  1. What’s my goal of testing?
  2. What’s one thing I need to do to complete my testing goal?

You can always break down one big thing into one small thing to make it achievable.

Consistently practicing asking this one thing question and making it become your habit will help you get amazing results not only in testing but also in everything you do.

What’s next?

  • Print out or write out this one question and then stick on your computer or where you can see easily.

“What’s the ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

  • Read the book and share your one thing by commenting right below.