[thelist] Tip - how to Outlook to better manage "things to do"

[Ken Schaefer]

<tip type="Outlook" author="Ken Schaefer">
Are you the type of person who forwards email to others when you need
to delegate a task to them that's contained in the message you just
received? Or even someone who files email into "to do" folders?

Perhaps this tip will help you better manage these tasks!

When an email arrives that requires action, right-click on the email
and drag it to your Tasks folder (or any folder configured to hold
"task" items). You'll get various options to copy or move the email as
a new Task


Tip 1:
If the task needs to be delegated to someone else click the "assign
task" button and select someone from the GAL or your contact list to
assign the task to. That person will be emailed, asking them to add
the task to their Task list. Optionally you can have the invite setup
so that you know when they (a) accept/reject the task and (b) complete
the task


Tip 2:
Enter a start and end date for the all your tasks that have such
dates. This then enables you to take advantage of some not-so-obvious
functionality in the Calendar view.

When viewing your Calendar, if the Task Pad is not viewable, bring it
up by using View -> Taskpad

Now, customise the view of the Taskpad by doing View -> Taskpad View
-> Active Tasks for Selected Dates

This enables you to see tasks for days that you are currently viewing
in the Calendar rather than the default: just the tasks for today
(which stays fixed no matter what day you are viewing the calendar)


Tip 3:
Right-click in the Taskpad and choose to arrange your tasks. Change
the sorting to be by Complete, and you can have the incomplete tasks
listed above the completed tasks. As you mark a task as complete, it
moves from the top of the list, to the bottom section.


Tip 4:
Personally I don't do this, but I've seen others do this. Create a
custom field for your tasks which allows you to assign numbers to your
tasks (eg 1,2,3,4), and sort your tasks by Complete and this custom
field. Whenever you have some spare time during the day, you do Task
Number 1, and cross it off. Then you do Task Number 2, and cross it
off. This helps avoid procrastination - if you have 20 tasks to do,
it's easier to not do any of them if they are unordered. By ordering
them, you have no excuse to sit there trying to decide which things to
do first!

HTH
</tip>