Have you ever found yourself on the Netflix homepage but nothing takes your fancy? Or perhaps you were scrolling Instagram or TikTok and everything just seemed… fine. That’s Sturgeon’s law in action.
In this post, I’ll break down what it is and how understanding it can help you not only avoid endless scrolling but also get more done.
What is Sturgeon’s Law?
Sturgeon’s law states that “90% of everything is crap.”
It comes from a quote by the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, who was asked why so much of science fiction was bad. This was an attack by the journalist critiquing the genre as a whole, so Sturgeon pointed out that there is a lot of junk in every area.
For example, approximately 67.1% of novels sell under 1,000 copies (with 14.7% selling under 12 copies).
It’s important to note that this isn’t a precise law, just like the Pareto ratio in some situations is close to 70%. Instead, this is a symbolic number that the vast majority are poor.
Why does Sturgeon’s Law matter?
You might think this is just a humorous venting or cynical take, but when we treat it as a mental model, we can improve our thinking and actions.
Avoid information overload
Every minute, 347,200 tweets are posted, 500 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube and over 347,222 Instagram stories.
There’s no way you could take them all in.
But realising that 90% is crap make it easier to deal with the FOMO of information overload. Rather than making sure you don’t miss something great, you need to block the rubbish.
Work only on the best ideas
Thinking of new ideas isn’t hard. Delivering good ideas is.
Most of us get distracted chasing the latest idea we have rather than sticking with last week’s new ideas. It’s the classic “Shiny object syndrome.”
One of the best tricks I’ve found for getting a good idea is to just generate a load of ideas without focusing on their quality. Sometimes I even intentionally think of bad ideas as it’s easier to get started.
It’s much easier to narrow in on what is a good idea when you have 20+ ideas.
Focus on the long game
When you start learning a new skills, you suck.
Unless you can leverage transferrable skills (like being able to play the guitar when learning the Ukulele), you’re going to suck too. Sturegon’s law reminds us that this is natural.
And sucking is the first step to being okay at something.
How to Apply Sturgeon’s Law in Your Life
There are a million ways to be inspired by Sturgeon’s law but here are a few practical steps.
- Filter content — add barriers and filters to block out the content you don’t want to see.
- Focus on high-impact activities — we often get distracted at work, by focusing on low-effort and high-impact activities, you’ll achieve greater returns.
- Just-in-time learning — most of us learn “just in case” for some hypothetical situation that rarely comes. Learning “Just in time” brings greater returns.
- Generate lots of ideas, focus on the best — don’t worry if the ideas you come up with are bad, keep thinking of ideas, and you’ll get some good ones.
Embrace an abundance mindset
It can feel demotivating and overwhelming seeing everything out there.
Sturgeon’s law is a reminder of the abundance of the age we are in. There is just so much out there that we are truly blessed. We have the fortunate problem of not needing to seek out good resources, but merely reducing our inputs.
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