Outlook Task List: The Most Powerful and Simple Tool in Work Productivity and Efficiency That No One Uses

 

Intro

The large majority of white color people I know use Microsoft Outlook to manage their emails, calendar and contact list, but almost none of them uses the Tasks list. The Tasks list is a powerful and easy to use tool that can help you get more done in less time, simplify your life, allow more creative flow and make you a better person.

 

Getting Things Done (GTD)

The fundamental principles of this article comes from the book, “Getting Things Done” (aka GTD) by David Allen.  One of the main take aways from the book is to get stuff out of your head and into a trusted system to free your mind up to think about deeper, more important or complex concepts concerning you carrier and life. 

 

David Allen likens your brain to a computer and you only have a finite amount of RAM.  A lot of free RAM allows your processor/brain to work faster.  The way to free up RAM is to get the tasks you have to do out of your head and into a trusted system where you know you will take action on them at the appropriate time.  If your RAM is being consumed by trying to remember all of the big and little tasks that you have to do, it is not free to think about the even more tasks you should be doing to make your day/project/life more successful.  If you haven’t read the book, I would highly recommend it; I read it 12 years ago and it changed my thought process and made everything better.

 

The main benefit of the GTD philosophy is becoming more productive, but a point that cannot be understated is the reduction in stress from implementing this system.  Stress sucks and life is too short to experience too much of it.  As you get older, you really appreciate a reduction in stress. 

 

Getting Started: How to Make a Task in Outlook

 

Step 1

To get to your Task list in Outlook, click on the clip board looking icon at the lower left corner circled in red in the screen shot below. 

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Step 2

Once you are in your Task list, to make a new task, click on the clipboard icon in the top left corner of the window (show in the below screen shot circled in red)

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Step 3

The below window will pop open.  Type the task you want to accomplish in the Subject line and click on the due date you want to accomplish the task.  It is that simple, that's all you need to get started.  Repeat this process for all the different tasks you have and you will be on your way to compiling a digital list that will help you get things done more efficiently and with less stress. 

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Adjusting the Settings in Outlook Tasks for Max Effectiveness

These instructions are for setting up your task list on a PC.  If you use a Mac, MS makes a version of Outlook for Mac.  The MAC setup is a little different and the interface is not as good, but follow the principles below and if you are smart enough to use a Mac, you can probably figure it out.

 

If you started creating tasks like I mention above, below is a screen shot of how your default tasks list looks in Outlook if you have made no customization to it.  Although this is OK, this list would be much more useful if it was grouped, categorized and sorted.

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Step 1

Right click on the bar that says "TASK SUBJECT" then click on "View Settings"

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This window will come up.  Click on "Group By"

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The below window will come up and in the first drop down menu you want to click on "Complete" and in the second drop down menu you want to click on "Due Date.”  This will separate your completed tasks (which you could care less about) from your incomplete tasks (which you care very much about).  It will also group your tasks into the dates you should pay attention to them.  As we will cover in more detail below, no need to even think about a task today if you can’t take action on it until next week (free up that RAM for bigger and better things!) 

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Step 2

This will organize your task like the screen shot below so that you only see the uncompensated tasks and they are listed by due date.  Again, if a task is not due until the end of the week, you don't even want to look at or think about it until the end of the work.  Stay focused on all the tasks you have to accomplish today, then you can jump ahead to tasks that are due in future dates. 

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Although the above grouping is very helpful, there is too much information on this screen that does not really help you manage your tasks.  To get rid of some of the above columns that have useless information, right click on the TASK SUBJECT bar as mentioned in Step 1 above, but this time, when the below window pops up, click on the "Columns" button. 

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The below window will pop up and you want to remove the following columns from the list on the left: Icon, Attachment, Status, Due Date, Date, Modified, Date Complete, In Folder, and Flag Status

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The only column you want to add from the left column to the right one is Notes

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Now your task list should look similar to the one in the below screen shot.  It is a pretty clean interface that I like but please experiment with all the functionality in the Advance View Settings window to set it up how you like it. By the way, once you complete a task, just click on the little box in the first column and that task will be removed from your view in the incomplete task list and moved to your completed task list at the bottom of the list when you scroll down. 

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All work and no [personal life] makes Jack a Dull Boy

Your task list doesn’t have to be all about work.  What I have observed is that people keep a task list that is specific to work, they seldomly mix in person tasks such as “pick up dry-cleaning” or “get oil change."  Your personal tasks can be just as, or more important than your professional tasks and you don’t want to have to maintain two separate systems to manage your professional and personal life.

 

Go ahead and mix up professional and person tasks into one list, because that is how you live you life.  When you are taking a shower or dropping the kids off at daycare, you are occasionally thinking about work and possibly even writing down work repeated tasks.  Likewise, when you are sitting at your office desk, you are thinking about planning that family vacation or what you have to do to prepare for your son’s Boy scout camping trip.  The task list is really to help you manage your whole life so manage your tasks like you live your life, all mixed up between professional and personal. 

 

If you feel guilty mixing your personal tasks into your professional task list, just remember that until you get your personal tasks out of your head and into a trusted system that you know you will take action on later, you are consuming brain RAM with your personal tasks that will not allow you to be as effective with thinking about professional tasks.  Not putting your personal tasks in Outlook Tasks can actually negatively affect your professional performance. If I am trying to keep track of all the things I have to do after work in my head, I am going to be less focused on work.

 

Capturing Tasks When They Pop Into Your Head

How many times have you thought of a task you need to do, told yourself you need to remember to do that later, then forgot all about it, only to remember it when the unaccomplished task became urgent or too late to accomplish?  A voice dictation to Siri (on iPhone) which is automaitcally translated into a task in MS Outlook will help to ensure this never happens to you again. 

 

Because of all of that freed up brain RAM you have because you are capturing and taking action on your tasks in your trusted system, a lot more ideas and tasks automatically pop into your head.  Professionally, this makes you a better employee because you are able to think deeper and/or wider about a project and the associated tasks that need to be accomplished to to achieve success in that project.  In your personal life, this makes you a better: son, husband, father, family member, and friend because you remember and accomplish the things that make you a better son, husband, father, etc. 

 

For example, you remember, and take action to send your nephew, who live across the nation, a gift for his birthday that he loved.  Because you are managing your tasks as mentioned above and have so much freed up RAM, you have time to think about your nephew, then you think you should surprise him with a cool gift for his birthday, then you look up his birthday and put on your task list to order him an gift wrapped gift from Amazon a couple weeks before his birthday.  When you get that extra big hug from your nephew when your home visiting family for Christmas, thank MS Outlook Tasks.  

 

Using your phone to capture tasks wherever you are

The great thing about Siri on an iPhone (or whatever Android has), right when a task pops into your head, you can quickly capture it on your task list by giving Siri a voice dictation. 

 

As of this writing, the iPhone IOS offered “Reminders” that sync with you Outlook Task list, but “Reminders" is a terrible app.  Features are limited, it’s clunky, and syncing is sketchy.  I’m currently using a third party app for iPhone called TaskTask and it's awesome!  Offers almost all of the functionality of computer base MS Outlook, and if you organize your tasks list like I recommend in this article, you will need all of that functionality. 

 

Being a better worker

Thinking about the things you need to do for work and actually taking action on them is one of the things that separates average workers from above average workers.  Average workers work when they are at work and deliberately try not to work, or think about work, when they are not at work.  This is a miserable way to approach your job.  If you don’t automatically think about your work very often, even when not at work, you should find a line of work you are more passionate about. 

 

Above average workers are at least somewhat passionate about their career choice and can’t help but think about their work during non-working hours.  They are the ones who have a great idea while taking a shower, write down that idea, and take action on it when they get to work.  Capturing your tasks when inspiration hits allows you to be one of those great workers.  You have to have a system in place where you can capture your ideas (which you turn into tasks) that you can take action on later.  

 

Following Up On Email Requests

Like most people, I email people asking for stuff: What is the status of x? Please do up a report about y. Please send deliverable z to the group.  It would be great if everyone did what you asked them to do and got back to you in a timely manner, but alas, that is not the world we live in.  You have to follow up with people to ensure they are doing what you ask them to do.  Outlook's mail and task function offers a great way to do this follow-up.

 

For example, say I write Chad the below email

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There is a possibility that Chad won't get back to me in a timely manner so I want to flag this email for follow up later.

 

I go to my "Sent Items" and I see the email I want to follow up on.  I right click on the little flag icon so I can follow up on this email at some day in the future.  As you will see from the drop down menue in the below screen shot, you can follow up "Today," "Tomorrow," "This Week," etc.  I normally click on "Custom" so I can select the specific date I want to follow up with this person.  For this example, I want to follow up on this email in five days on 10/11/16.  

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After I flag that email for follow up on 10/11/16, I can see that Outlook automatically added a task to my task list on 10/11/16 to remind me to follow up on that email.

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This is such a powerful tool to make sure that team members deliver on their deliverables on time.  They may ignore your original email or may just forget about it.  If you are on top of them, reminding them of their deliverable, your chances of timely accomplishment go way up.  It keeps balls from being dropped.

 

Instead of following up on your sent email to someone asking for something, if that person sends you an email saying they will have you their deliverable to you by next week by Tuesday, you can simply flag their email for follow up next week Wednesday.  Now that you know that you are going to follow up on that open item next week because you have captured it in your trusted system, you can remove that email from your inbox by filing it into a project/subject folder in Outlook Mail.  This is the key to clearing out your inbox and getting to "inbox zero."  It's such a great feeling of accomplishment and control to get your inbox totally cleaned out.  A few people I know regularly have over one thousand emails in their inbox.  That is no way to manage your responsibilities.  You are most certainly dropping balls if you keep over 1000 emails in your inbox.

 

Bells and Whistles

Above are the fundamentals of setting up your task list, but MS Outlook Tasks offers a few bells and whistles that will help you optimize your task management. 

 

Setting the priority level of tasks

Different task have different levels of urgency.  Outlook allows you to make a task urgent with an “!” or non-urgent with a down arrow.  This is helpful because if you see a red embolden exclamation point next to a task, you quickly know it is urgent and you need to address it today. 

 

Establishing and placing tasks in categories

Assigning a task to a certain category allows you to work on categories of tasks when it is optimal to work on them.  Some of the categories I have set up are: In the Office, Phone, About Town, At Home.  My “In the Office” tasks are the ones I can only really effectively accomplish in the office.  Categorizing tasks this way allows me to concentrate on the “In the Office” tasks when I’m in the office, but I don’t have to worry about those tasks when I am at home or on the road.  Again, this helps in freeing up RAM.

 

Unfinished Tasks

One of the great things about managing your tasks digitally, as opposed to on a piece of paper, is that you can move your tasks to a different day with a simple drag and drop. If you don’t finish a task on a certain day, just drag it to the next day. If you manage your task with pen and paper, you have to flip back in your book to see all of the unfinished tasks, or re-write them on the current page to eliminate the page flipping. 

 

Assigning Tasks

You can assign tasks to people using the OUtlook Task list, but since so few other people use Outlook Tasks, this is probably not the most useful function. I think it would be better to assign a task to someone via email and let them manage that task with whaterver system they have.

 

Conclusion

You have to pick the system that works for you and that you are comfortable with, but when I see people manage their task list with a piece of paper and pen, I shake my head at their inefficiency and limited capacity.  Hopefully the above recommendations and description on how to manage your tasks make you more productive, less stressed, and a better persons.