Woodworking Is 90% Sanding

Find something you love to do—even the boring parts.

I’m not sure but I think this is “sanding”? 📷

There’s a meme that gets passed around online:

“Woodworking sounds really cool until you realize it’s 90% sanding.”

Is this intended to be both funny and true? I’m no woodworker, but my guess would be yes.

Someone who saw the original post chimed in to say that photography is 90% editing. If you want to become a great photographer, you need to be comfortable editing lots of photos. That’s just how it works! There are tools that make it faster and easier, but in the life of most photographers, taking photos is not the primary activity.

This same principle holds true across many fields. Writing is 90% rewriting. Cooking is 90% prep. Coding is 90% debugging. (Maybe you already know what yours is.)

Outsourcing and Delegation

Why doesn’t the woodworker outsource the sanding? Surely there’s a virtual assistant or intern woodworker who can take over?

It sounds absurd, but this is exactly how many people think about their craft. They look for shortcuts and ways to avoid “busy work,” without realizing that this work is integral to the finished product.

And I get it. The sanding isn’t what draws you to the craft. Nobody starts a business because they’re excited about invoicing. The detailed tasks can feel low-status, like they’re somehow beneath the “real” work. But that’s a misunderstanding of what the real work is. The sanding isn’t separate from the craft; it’s most of the craft.

Sure, be efficient! But don’t neglect the sanding. And if you hate sanding entirely—whatever “sanding” looks like in your world—maybe you should look for something else to do.

I’m just a few weeks past hosting my last event, which is both a celebration and a mission. Along with several other team members, this year I spent many hours working through a spreadsheet to slot in 70 different sessions and meetups across multiple rooms and time blocks. Every change created a ripple—move one session and you’ve got a speaker conflict, a room capacity problem, or back-to-back sessions on the same topic. Nobody at the event said “Wow, great spreadsheet work.” But they did say “I loved how the schedule flowed.” That’s sanding.

Several times in the weeks and months leading up to the big weekend, I thought about the 90% sanding analogy. Detail work is the main requirement of a successful event. Thinking things through is what makes the difference. Being willing to follow through and follow up, not just generate ideas, is where the value comes from.

And that’s okay! It’s how it should be. If you care about the details, you’ll have a MUCH better outcome than if you prefer to “be a visionary” and outsource your admin.

On stage at NeuroDiversion 26 with Ky Westcott (@thevibewithky). See 1,200 more photos here.

Finding work you love to do is the coolest thing. If you love your work, it affects everything else. It can carry you through hard times. It doesn’t replace the other parts of life, but it matters more than most people give it credit for.

What must you love about it? You must love the small things that take up most of the time! Or at least you must respect them.

If you don’t respect these parts, if instead you resent them and see them as beneath you—well, good luck. Find something else to give your effort to.

It’s hard to find the right match, but it’s very much worth the effort. When you feel discouraged, remind yourself: 90% sanding.