[MEP]

Some people learn how to use a particular system and then never grow beyond it's limitations because they don't understand the principles behind it. This is the flaw of things like Franklin Covey which are basically a scam to sell overpriced day planners to people who don't want to be bothered to figure out the hard details.

David Allen's system is intentionally vague because it's supposed to be about personal growth as well as productivity. You can't hand someone a system for personal growth. No matter how well-tuned your system is, it's not the right system for me or anybody else.

I understand the complaint though. It's easiest to learn from examples rather than from abstract ideas. That's why I'm thankful for people like Merlin Mann who went into startlingly fine detail describing their GTD systems in public forums and started discussions on the various topics of ground-level implementation. For those of us who can't afford the personal coaching, it helps a lot.

I like the way David Allen talks about GTD in vague ideas rather than specifics and I like the way that the rather large online GTD-using community fills in the blanks with back-and-forth pro vs. con discussions of real-world implementation. I understand David's approach (knowing his background and interests in Eastern philosophies and martial arts -- I can relate to it having studied Eastern philosophies and martial arts myself) and I really do think that for many people, it's the absolute best way to talk about it.

But that doesn't make it universally effective for everybody. He had to choose a way to teach it, and he chose. His method of teaching GTD (or GTD in general) won't work for everyone. I don't think he's ever claimed it will. Not that I've read/heard at least.