The final keystroke echoes in the quiet room. git commit. A small, satisfying thud. The problem is solved, the logic is sound, the code is clean. Maria leans back, but she isn’t finished. She isn’t even close to finished. Now, the real performance begins.

First, the Jira ticket. She navigates to the browser tab-one of 47-and finds the corresponding card, #PM-777. She types a meticulous summary of the changes, linking to the commit, referencing the design specs, and tagging the QA engineer. She changes the status from ‘In Progress’ to ‘In Review.’ Click. Next, the Trello board, a redundant system the design team prefers. She finds the parallel card, drags it across the screen with a synthetic whoosh. Then, Slack. She posts a summary in the #dev-updates channel, a slightly different summary than the one in Jira, tailored for a less technical audience. Finally, the weekly progress report, a separate Google Doc where she lists her accomplishments in bullet points, re-framing the same single task for the fourth time. The code took three hours. The performance of having coded will take one.

This entire ecosystem of digital breadcrumbs-the tickets, the cards, the status updates, the check-ins-is built on a single, corrosive foundation: a fundamental lack of trust. It operates on the premise that if work isn’t seen, it isn’t happening. The artifact of the work has become more important than the work itself. We are no longer just programmers, designers, or writers; we are performers in a grand theater of productivity, and our managers are the audience, the critics. Looking productive is now a core job requirement, as vital as being productive.

I used to believe this was a necessary evil. A way to handle complexity in projects with 237 moving parts. I even advocated for it. Years ago, I argued with my friend, Ella S.K., a grief counselor, that her practice needed better “tracking systems.” I asked how she measured progress, how she documented client breakthroughs. She gave me a look I’ll never forget, a quiet mix of confusion and pity.

Her work is the outcome. My work has become the process.

Her statement severed a wire in my brain. Her value is measured by a transformed human life. My value, too often, is measured by a green checkmark in a SaaS application. The obsession with visibility creates a perverse incentive to focus on tasks that are easily documented. The messy, ambiguous, and often most critical work-the thinking, the experimenting, the quiet epiphanies-gets sidelined because it doesn’t fit neatly into a ticket. It has no digital footprint, so in the eyes of the system, it doesn’t exist.

This breeds a culture of performative efficiency. You learn to break down your work into the smallest possible, ticket-sized chunks, not because it’s a better way to work, but because it generates more ‘activity.’ More cards moved, more tickets closed, more green squares on your GitHub contribution graph. It’s a gamified distraction from genuine progress.

This complexity of tools and processes is draining. At work, my screen is a tapestry of overlapping systems, each demanding its own unique ritual of updates and confirmations. One platform for tasks, another for communication, a third for documentation, a fourth for time tracking. It’s a cognitive tax we pay every single day. The mental shift required to navigate this labyrinth is immense. You find yourself craving simplicity elsewhere. At home, especially with the beautiful chaos of a young child, I don’t want a different tool for every problem. I want one thing that solves many. When there’s food on the face, the hands, and the high chair, I don’t want to consult a multi-step “clean-up protocol.” That’s why having something like Premium food safe baby wipes that can handle 7 different kinds of messes without a second thought feels less like a product and more like a reprieve. It simplifies a complex part of my life, a direct antidote to the ever-multiplying complexity of my professional world. Why can’t work be more like that?

I’m not a Luddite. I know we need systems. And here’s the contradiction I can’t escape: I hate this theater, but I’ve also seen it save the show. A few years back, our team’s lead developer had to take an emergency leave for 27 days, right in the middle of a critical project. We were adrift. But his Jira tickets were immaculate. His documentation was a masterclass in clarity. Every dependency was logged, every conversation was summarized, every decision was justified. The trail of redundant, tedious, administrative breadcrumbs he had been leaving for months became our lifeline. We were able to piece together his work and move forward without collapsing.

So where does that leave us? Trapped, it would seem, between a desire for deep, uninterrupted work and the organizational need for transparent, resilient systems.

I still think about Ella. Her work leaves no tickets, no status reports, no commit logs.