The 1% Content Strategy: How to Achieve Your Goals by Ignoring 99% of Content on the Internet

“Garbage in, garbage out.”

— William D. Mellin

Do you feel like there’s so much great stuff to watch or read on the internet that you’ll never have time to get to it all?

Do your “watch later” and “read later” lists number in the thousands… and only get longer with each passing day?

You’re not the only one. There are thousands of articles in my Pocket to-read list and over 800 books on my Bookbub wishlist. It would take me a lifetime to read everything I’ve saved.

If I cared to read everything I’ve saved, that is. But I won’t. In the end, I’ll read less than 1% of it. Even though everything I’ve ever saved is awesome and valuable, 99% of it will end up being of no use to me. That’s the 1% content rule:

Only 1% of everything you could watch or read has the power to help you achieve your goals. The other 99% is of no use.

There’s a lot of cool stuff on the internet to watch or read. But most of it merely wastes your time. It’s repeating information you already know, like the same productivity advice you’ve read a thousand times already. Or telling you stuff you never needed to know in the first place, like the latest political gossip.

You may think it makes you informed. But this information changes nothing. It doesn’t change your house, car, or the quality of your marriage. It doesn’t even change the way you vote.

Information that changes nothing is not information, it’s mental clutter.

Some of it actively holds you back in life. Many people profit by disempowering you. Politicians and journalists profit off of convincing you that you’re a victim. Corporations profit by convincing you that you have problems you don’t have. Social media companies and newsfeeds profit by making you upset and outraged.

You already know this. But this danger seems abstract to you. You don’t see the impact it has on your life every single day. Allow me to explain.

Let’s say you’re sick of being broke. Many of you reading this article are. Your lives would be a lot better if you doubled your income.

You can easily do that in 3 to 5 years. If you took the right steps — enhanced your productivity, invested wisely, maybe started a side hustle — you could double your income before you know it. If you surrounded yourself with books, articles, and YouTube videos about how to do this, it’s inevitable that you would make it happen sooner or later.

When you go on social media, though, you’re not surrounding yourself with the information you need to do this. You’re surrounding yourself with information that holds you back.

Like news articles that tell you it’s the Republican’s fault you’re broke. Or the Democrats. Or the corporate billionaires conspiring to keep you down. Oh, and you saw your old sorority sister’s new $500,000 house posted on your feed. She can afford her dream house and you’re nowhere close. You still don’t have any idea how you could get more money, but now you’re more miserable than when you started.

You can watch some cat videos to cheer yourself up, but you still don’t have the first idea about what to do to fix this… and now you’re sick of the internet and exhausted and need a break from the computer. Another day down the drain.

What would happen if you cut this mental clutter out?

Imagine quitting social media so you couldn’t hear about the billionaires and politicians and compare yourself to others. What would happen if you subscribed to awesome newsletters, borrowed bestselling library books, and watched educational YouTube videos instead?

Imagine what could happen in your life if you focused on what you can control instead of what you can’t control.

Imagine how much happier you would be, even before you made any extra money, because you would finally be making progress toward your goals.

I’m not saying politicians and corporate billionaires have no power over your life. They do. But they will do what they will do, regardless of whether you keep up with their shenanigans or not. Do your civic duty and vote, then keep your head down and focus on what you can change. You have the power to change the world, but you can’t do it by sharing political memes.

Why You Haven’t Found Any 1% Content Yet

The first step to surrounding yourself with 1% content is deciding what you want to change about your life. Set some goals. You can’t decide what content to surround yourself with if you don’t know what your goals are.

If you’re like me, you’re not being fully honest with yourself about what you want to change. For years, I wasn’t honest with myself about how miserable not having money was making me. I told myself I was fine with not making much money, when in fact, it bothered me nearly every day that I didn’t have enough money to travel around the world or buy the things I wanted.

Recently, I got honest with myself about wanting more money. Then I gave myself permission to want more money. Now I’m surrounding myself with content about how to make big money as a writer. I’m much happier — I’m finally headed in the direction of what I want, even if I’m not there yet.

Do you wish your marriage was better? Do you wish you had the marriage of your dreams, that you and your spouse were still happily in love even after 25 years? Admit that to yourself.

Everyone’s goals are different, but there will be common themes. Meaningful work. Financial independence. A happy marriage. Exciting travel plans.

Maybe some of your goals will be unusual. I want a personal flying machine. Don’t judge yourself. Let yourself want what you want.

Be honest about what you don’t want to focus on, too. My to-read list has dozens of articles about getting six-pack abs, but getting six-pack abs is not a priority of mine, so I don’t read these articles. My Bookbub wish list has dozens of books about philosophy, but I’m not in a phase of life where philosophy is important to me, so these books are going unread.

Chances are most of the content you are consuming right now doesn’t support those goals. Following politics not only doesn’t help you have a better relationship, arguing about politics probably makes your relationship worse. Cat videos don’t help you overcome your problem with chronically avoiding the gym.

Why You Need to Pay Money for 1% Content

Most of the best content on the internet is hidden behind a paywall. That makes sense. When it comes to 1% content, the excellent content is the product. Compare that to the rest of the internet, where 99% of the content is designed to get you to click so you can become the product for an advertising company.

If you’ve never paid money for content before, it seems like a waste of cash. For years, I refused to buy online courses because I believed they were all scams. If you offered me a paid newsletter or community, I’d turn my nose up at it. After all, I could find that information on the internet for free, right?

I also struggled to build my business or make forward progress in my life during those years. Everything seemed difficult and the answers seemed so mysterious.

Now, I pay for courses. I’m part of paid online communities and subscribe to paid newsletters, too. Sure, I could find most of this content scattered across the internet. But paying people to gather it up and present it to me in an easy-to-read format saves me literally hundreds of hours of scouring the internet and trying to put the pieces together myself. It takes the mystery out of the process and makes things easy. That is unquestionably worth it.

You already know what your paid 1% content is. That online course you keep seeing advertisements for, that paid newsletter that always looked really cool to you, or that app subscription it would be oh-so-convenient to have. The paywall that always annoys you when it pops up.

Do yourself a favor and pay for 1% content so you don’t have to struggle.

How to Your Find 1% Content

Here are some steps you can take to surround yourself with 1% content:

1. Unfollow and unsubscribe from anything that isn’t making your life better or supporting your goals. Before quitting social media, I unfollowed and unsubscribed from hundreds of accounts I’d added over the years.
2. Break your bad internet habits. Block anything you regularly consume that doesn’t support your goals. Use programs like 1Focus and SelfControl to retrain yourself to check websites that help you, not hurt you.
3. Subscribe to those cool newsletters you see at the bottom of articles like this one. Use Libby to borrow books from your library that you’ve been meaning to read for years. Surround yourself with people who’ve been where you want to go.

Most of you reading this article won’t do this. You won’t want to give up your funny meme channels or pessimistic group chats. You’re too attached to the patterns that keep you stuck in life.

If this is you, you don’t have to do what I’m recommending. It’s your life to live. Live it the way you want. But don’t be surprised when you’re still struggling with the same problems five years from now.

For those of you who do make the change, your new habits will feel uncomfortable for a while. You may feel bored and restricted. Your animal brain will want to move back to your comfort zone, the content that was keeping you placid and stuck in life. Remind yourself that this comfort zone was what was keeping you stuck.

You won’t make immediate progress toward your goals, either. You’ll go through a period of feeling bored and stuck. This is normal. To turn a car around, you must first come to a standstill before you can head in the other direction.

After a month or two, your new habits will settle in. You won’t want to go back to doomscrolling or surfing meme chats anymore. It’s been years since I’ve intentionally sought out a meme and I don’t miss them at all. I have no idea what’s going on with social media and I don’t care. The immense progress I’ve made in life has been more than worth it. Once you start making progress, you’ll see what I mean. You’ll regret all the time you ever wasted doing anything else.

In Conclusion

Most of what you’re reading, watching, and consuming is holding you back in life. It’s keeping you stuck in a state of mind where you blame other people for your problems and distract yourself with meaningless content. If you’re doing this, it’s not surprising that you’re stuck in life year after year.

To get unstuck, give up 99% of content on the internet. Focus on the 1% of content that actually has the power to change your life.

1. Get honest about what you want out of life. Admit your desires to yourself.
2. Unfollow, unsubscribe from, and ignore all the content that holds you back from getting what you want.
3. Add in amazing content from experienced people that will teach you how to get more of what you want and less of what you don’t want.
4. Be willing to pay for 1% content when you find content that’s worth it. Don’t turn your nose up at amazing value.

Give your new habits time to work. Stick with your new habits for two months before giving up. If you give up before then, you won’t have a chance to start seeing the immense benefits. The best things in life take a little time to start working.

After that, you won’t want to go back to your old way of doing things. You’ll regret ever having wasted so much time in the first place.

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