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title: 99% of effort is wasted
created: 2025-12-03T05:33:32
modified: 2025-12-04T17:06:31
---

[@jorgensonAlmanackNavalRavikant2021]

> _“I do believe that 99% of effort in life is ‘wasted’. And it’s not wasted in the sense that you don’t learn something; you do learn something. But if you look back at all the term papers you wrote and all the classes you took and all the people you dated and on all the thoughts you had and all the things you stressed about and all the decisions you made, 99% of them didn’t matter; they were inconsequential; and there were a few 1% decisions that did matter.”_

> _“I think most people are working too hard. I think most people are just basically spinning wheels. The older you get, the better you get at just declining work that you know is useless. I have this theory that 99% of work that you do is useless. You still have to do it because it’s iterating your way to the 1% that is useful. But, in an ideal world, if you are omniscient, you would just cut to the 1%.”_

> _[“You should be very thoughtful and realize in most things (relationships, work, even in learning) what you’re trying to do is find the thing you can go all-in on to earn compound interest. When you’re dating, the instant you know this relationship is not going to be the one that leads to marriage, you should probably move on. When you’re studying something, like a geography or history class, and you realize you are never going to use the information, drop the class. It’s a waste of time. It’s a waste of your brain energy. I’m not saying don’t do the 99 percent, because it’s very hard to identify what the 1 percent is. What I’m saying is: when you find the 1 percent of your discipline which will not be wasted; which you’ll be able to invest in for the rest of your life and has meaning to you, go all-in and forget about the rest.”](https://www.navalmanack.com/almanack-of-naval-ravikant/play-long-term-games-with-long-term-people)_