Most people, for some odd reason, don't understand the 'one action' even though if you read the entire section in the rules it's really self explanatory. The 'one action' only refers to the one action that can be taken during your preform action step. That is all.

When the rules talk about a free action not counted as the 'one action' it means you don't perform a free action during the perform action step. So when you use the 'one action' in a sentence, replace it with 'the action taken in the perform action step' because that is ALL it refers to.