Adapted by:
Javier Lacort
Senior WriterI write long-form content at Xataka about the intersection between technology, business and society. I also host the daily Spanish podcast Loop infinito (Infinite Loop), where we analyze Apple news and put it into perspective.
Karen Alfaro
WriterCommunications professional with a decade of experience as a copywriter, proofreader, and editor. As a travel and science journalist, I've collaborated with several print and digital outlets around the world. I'm passionate about culture, music, food, history, and innovative technologies.
There’s something inherently human about the desire to find patterns where there are none, to attribute causality to mere chance. Centuries ago, people danced for rain. Today, they organize their imagination to be more productive.
Same superstition, different ritual.
Cal Newport called “productivity rain dances” those activities people do in the belief they will improve results but are just rituals with little real impact.
People spend hours configuring time management apps (guilty), categorizing emails by color (innocent), and testing methodologies as if they were magic potions (guilty). They dance around the productivity bonfire, hoping the performance gods will take pity on them. Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani (My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?)
The interesting thing about these digital superstitions is that, unlike our ancestors’ rituals, they’re backed by fancy interfaces and metrics that feed the illusion of progress.
Spending three hours reorganizing cloud folders doesn’t produce real work, even if it creates a satisfying sense of order. Constantly deleting notifications doesn’t move projects forward but provides small doses of dopamine. And so, users build belief systems:
- “I can only focus with this particular app.”
- “I need my 17-step morning ritual, or the day is lost.”
- “I must respond to every message immediately, or I’m a terrible professional.”
The problem with these rituals isn’t that they are useless—some have value—but that people confuse the means with the end, the activity with the result.
In Newport’s words, we “focus on the activity of the moment rather than the results over time.” And while people perform these dances with devotion, the important projects that could change their trajectory remain untouched on their to-do lists.
It takes pragmatic rigor to break free of these digital superstitions. We must ask ourselves whether an activity produces a measurable result or just gives the illusion of moving forward. Are we confusing movement with progress?
The most effective rituals are the least spectacular: blocks of uninterrupted time, limiting notifications, and focusing on desired results.
It may not hurt to stop dancing for rain and start building aqueducts.
Related | The Hadfield Method: What an Astronaut’s Obsession With Failure Can Teach Us About Productivity
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