I picture my todo list as heirarchical. Like, "grow my business" might be a top level entry... but beneath that, I've got, say, "improve provisioning automation," "Improve marketing," "setup backups," "create new services," then, say, under "improve provisioning automation" then we start seeing, you know, actual programs I could work on.
But, my point is, "One thing" if you don't specify how far up or down that hierarchical list, really can mean a billion things. I mean, even once I have the hierarchical list up, many tasks help with more than one higher level task. I mean, backups, for my own stuff, could improve marketing, but the way I'm implementing backups, I can sell space to people that aren't my current customers, so it's also a new service.
I think people are reading this too literally. The 'one thing' isn't your task, it's your goal. You engage in whatever tasks are necessary to achieve your goal in a way that is good for the business. This ensures that each business function is the best it can be.
For example, suppose the next most important thing for your business to do is to reduce marketing spend. you make that someone's goal, and that person focuses on reducing CPA for several weeks. obviously, you don't want this person to divert their time to answer support emails--you want them focused on saving your company boatloads of money.
I picture my todo list as heirarchical. Like, "grow my business" might be a top level entry... but beneath that, I've got, say, "improve provisioning automation," "Improve marketing," "setup backups," "create new services," then, say, under "improve provisioning automation" then we start seeing, you know, actual programs I could work on.
But, my point is, "One thing" if you don't specify how far up or down that hierarchical list, really can mean a billion things. I mean, even once I have the hierarchical list up, many tasks help with more than one higher level task. I mean, backups, for my own stuff, could improve marketing, but the way I'm implementing backups, I can sell space to people that aren't my current customers, so it's also a new service.