Alright, so everyone started talking about this “Stephen Peterson” guy, right? Like, he was suddenly everywhere – podcasts, articles, that one super enthusiastic coworker who always jumps on the next big thing. His ‘system’ was supposed to be revolutionary for getting things done, making you super productive, all that jazz. I figured, okay, what’s the harm? Let me give this a shot.
So, I dived in. First, I bought his book, “The Peterson Principle: Decode, Design, Dominate.” Catchy title, I’ll give him that. Then, I started setting things up just like he said. He had this whole elaborate routine: morning manifestation journals, specific app stacks you had to use (even if they felt clunky as heck), and a color-coded priority system that looked like a rainbow exploded on my desk. I mean, red for ‘Immediate Action’, crimson for ‘Slightly Less Immediate But Still Screaming Action’, scarlet for ‘Think About Action Soon’… you get the idea. It felt like I needed a decoder ring just to figure out what to do next.
I spent the first few days just trying to migrate all my existing tasks and notes into his prescribed format. Days, I tell you! I was organizing more than I was actually doing. I remember thinking, is this the ‘decode’ part? Because I was definitely decoding something, mostly his overly complicated instructions. I’d look at my perfectly arranged ‘Peterson Board’ and feel a tiny bit proud, then realize I hadn’t actually completed a single meaningful task all day.
My Big “Aha!” (or “Uh Oh?”) Moment
The real kicker came when I tried to apply it to a team project. I suggested we all adopt certain parts of the “Peterson Principle.” Oh boy. Some folks were polite but skeptical, others just looked at me like I’d grown a second head. We spent more time debating the merits of ‘cerulean blue for collaborative tasks’ versus ‘navy blue for deep work’ than actually, you know, collaborating or doing deep work.
It made me think, why do we fall for these things so hard?
This whole experience really threw me back to an old job I had. We had this manager, bless his heart, who was obsessed with a methodology called “Synergy Flow.” Sounds impressive, right? It involved:
- Daily 15-minute “alignment huddles” that somehow always lasted an hour.
- Weekly “progress matrix” reports that took half a day to fill out.
- A shared digital whiteboard that nobody updated because it was too cumbersome.
We were so busy “Synergy Flowing” that actual projects crawled along at a snail’s pace. Good people left. The ones who stayed just got really good at looking busy and talking the “Synergy Flow” talk. It was all about the process, not the outcome. Sound familiar?
So, with this Stephen Peterson stuff, I started seeing the same pattern. Lots of rules, lots of setup, lots of talk about how amazing it is. But when the rubber met the road, it just added more friction for me. I found myself spending more time trying to be a “Peterson Practitioner” than actually practicing my craft or, you know, getting things done.
I eventually just… stopped. I went back to my messy, imperfect, but functional way of doing things. A simple to-do list, a calendar, and focusing on one thing at a time. And guess what? I started finishing things again. Shocking, I know.
I’m not saying Stephen Peterson is a fraud or anything. Maybe his system genuinely works wonders for some people, maybe even for him. But I’ve learned that these one-size-fits-all “revolutionary” methods often aren’t. We’re all different. What makes one person fly can make another person just feel bogged down in fancy folders and color codes. For me, this whole Stephen Peterson practice was a good reminder to trust my own gut and find what actually works for me, not what some guru on a podcast says should work for everyone.
