SELECT only what you need, whether it's by limiting the columns returned or by pagination. Deterministic ordering is crucial for effective pagination. There are two primary ways to paginate in MySQL: offset/limit and cursors. Offset/limit pagination can be slower as you navigate deeper into the pages and is more prone to drift. Cursor-based pagination is more performant and resilient to shifting rows, but it's more complicated to implement and cannot directly address pages. The choice of pagination method depends on your specific use case and application requirements.