David Allen talks about hard landscape as being the items that must be done on certain days which all end up going on your calendar. I consider the applications below – ways in which you can utilize different software to manage your new GTD way of life – as soft landscape.

GTD Tiddly Wiki
This great app installs locally so you won’t need an internet connection to manage your GTD life. GTD TiddyWiki is searchable, has the option to print onto a 3×5 index card, and is completely customizable. Though it hasn’t been updated in some time, it is opensource as well.

GTD Gmail is an addon for Firefox that transforms regular Gmail into a GTDInbox. It allows you to turn email into tasks; categorise actions, communication, and resources into clusters (such as projects); and it can loosely support teamwork. It also provides a printable format that will fit onto a 3×5 index card and is completely open source.

HiveMinder is great for “brain dumping” with it’s one click task creator. It’s searchable, shareable, and contains RSS feeds, iCalendar feeds and great printing features. The free version is ad-supported but there is talk of a paid non-ad format coming out as well.

Remember the Milk is a free program that has the ability to connect with many programs you already use! For example, you can follow Remember The Milk on Twitter and send them a message that will get added to your “to do list”. You can also utilize RTM via iPhone, iPod touch, Gmail, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Google Gears, Google Calendar, iGoogle Gadget, Netvibes, and you can even add a bookmarklet to your web browser. Most features are accessible from the free sign-up that is available.

Thinking Rock is a stand alone program that has a distince operation for each of the three steps in GTD: Collect, process, Revew-Plan-Do.

Midnight Inbox is another stand alone program that allows you to fully implement GTD into your life.

If you are in a true paperless office, Ready Set Do! may be the application for you. It functions like a virtual version of the paper method described in David’s book.

As you are working through the GTD system, it is easy to find lots of wonderful ways to help make the system more customized and easy to use. The most important thing to remember is that you actually have to DO these things – not just plan them out.

What types of GTD things are you hoping to learn about? What would you like to see in our upcoming posts about David Allen’s system?