Nudone,
I might not disagree with the main point you are trying to make.. but i think one could also argue it in this way:
There is no magic "system" that is going to fix you and make you more organized. Your problems may have deeper causes.
And maybe there is nothing that much better about one system over another.
But it's possible that in a search and exploration of new systems you might discover some deeper issues or leave yourself open to learning something about yourself that helps.
At least that's a more positive take on the search for an organizational system that suits you.
-mouser
Hmm one could take an eclectic approach. Personally I think most "systems" degenerate into dogma that crams reality into the mold with enough pressure to make it "fit" the system. Better to steal one good gimmick/feature or two from each and chuck the rest.
-MilesAhead
The problem with this approach is it is precisely how semi-moderate planner type/productive people have hijacked the GTD concept.
They say "oh, the great thing about GTD is that you can take these many concepts" and while it's true to some extent, it's also true for most systems.
The bad side is that they rarely tell you what the end result of implementing GTD is. In fact more often than not, I've only heard David Allen say this is what GTD is when you completely do it. Sure, he's the creator of the system so he'll do that but these other people often don't even try.
What they'll often do is hide enough frustrations until some new hip trick software arrives or they discover some cool productivity trick that just complicates the process and is only good on the surface and then lo and behold. GTD is complicated and so to simplify things, try this.
This is how we got the horrible confusing thing that we should all just take bits off and create eclectic approach and productivity systems are a headache and hard to compare in the first place! Worse, often times, productivity writers won't try to set standards for fear of some people thinking their systems might be still flawed that rather than accept the criticism, they "encourage" the supporters and these supporters often end up defending them to the point that they rarely need to.
The problem of course is that everyone who doesn't buy the system or doesn't get the system is the victim because they're rarely guided into the system but instead the supporters create such a mish mash of their own eclectic approach plus the creator's productivity system that it trickles down to software design for these systems, it trickles down to confusion and headaches with these systems but worse, you can't properly compare the two systems validly because it has become like emacs vs. vim. Each side having so much eclectic plugins that you need to consider the plugins.
While this is bad for software, it at least isn't life altering for most people (just a headache to understand the right customization) With productivity systems though, it becomes a case where a productivity system is near impossible to criticize "as a system" (i.e. not some separate section) because then somebody would say, "oh you didn't try it with index cards" or "oh you didn't try it with this software" that even if you get past that, people will just say "oh you're not supposed to follow through and through and it's supposed to be eclectic" that in the end, if you didn't quit by then because of the confusion, you would have a headache until you just go "no more. They all don't work!" after having your entire mindset nearly destroyed.
I'm not a proponent of GTD though nor do I claim to be an expert in productivity systems but it's pretty obvious to me that when you try to browse productivity blogs especially the popular ones, no one dares to criticize each other. It's usually the commentors and often only with side-glancing arguments. No in-depth discussions. It's also a crime many software supporters have. They used these software and suddenly the software can or they figure'd out a way to create @work, @home filters and checkboxes and tabs and they call it GTD and few call them out on it until something like a ThinkingRock comes and oh suddenly
it's:
While many other task management applications have found ways to incorporate the ideas put forth by the Getting Things Done methodology that David Allen developed, it seems that very few have been built from the ground up as GTD applications. There are certainly a few web applications that can make that claim, but in terms of "offline" applications, the pickings are pretty slim.
Guess what happens after this? Will the supporters take this as a sign that something is amiss in the rest of software-dom? Nope. Instead criticism only trickles down to: "Oh, it's a Java app" or "Oh, I don't like having a flash drive with me". Again. Nothing on the actual system. It's like the kernel is connected to whatever application is open at the moment. Of course it all falls down like a house of cards. Even these eclectic people rarely hang up their productivity system to be looked at. Believe me, my system's eclectic too and I can tell you, it's not as easy as molding a system. I had went three versions of my molded system already because I eventually found out a flaw again and again so to say eclectic models are the best, then guess what, all these supposed original productivity systems are eclectic models too. If they all were perfect and meant for eclectic adaptation than these systems wouldn't have gotten away with any praise because then there would be no standards by which to judge them except for which becomes the best marketed system. Henceforth, productivity will never improve because instead of building upon the shoulders of better productivity systems, everyone's taking a piece out of the mona lisa and using it as sticky notes.