I Removed 80% of useEffect From Our Codebase — Here's What Happened

If you've been writing React for a while, you know the feeling. Something's not working. Data isn't updating. A bug appears out of nowhere. And somewhere in your codebase, there's a useEffect quietly causing chaos. Here's the truth senior React developers know: most useEffect calls shouldn't exist. I went through a mid-sized React project last month and removed 80% of the useEffect calls . The app got faster, the code got cleaner, and the bugs disappeared. This article shows you exactly what I used instead. 🚀 Why useEffect Gets Overused When you first learn React, useEffect feels like a superpower. Need to fetch data? useEffect . Need to update something when state changes? useEffect . Not sure what's happening? Throw in a useEffect and hope for the best. The problem? useEffect was never meant to be your default tool. It was designed for synchronizing with external systems — things like DOM APIs, third-party libraries, and network requests that React doesn't control. Using it for every