Now there’s also Microsoft Lists. Microsoft is really needs to streamline their apps offerings. Who on Earth thinks it’s a wise idea to have Projects, Planner, To Do, Lists, OneNote, Loop, Excel, Outlook Tasks, Teams, etc… for planing, to do lists and notes? Those 9 could be combined into 3 really.
I tend to agree, there are way too many apps… but watching this video I can see some of the benefits of having apps that work differently because we all process things differently in our brains. What will work better for one person may not work for another at all. That being said, they still don’t need 10+ applications for tasks/lists.
I use GTD, and my outlook calendar is an extension of my brain, it's the control centre of how I manage everything for work. The biggest challenge is processing all of my inputs (inbox) that will be email requests, thoughts, notes etc into one single task list that i can then transpose into a calendar entry. It would be a huge benefit if any of these apps allow you to define the duration of a task without fudging a start and end date, and then allowing you to drag and drop into outlook calendar into a suitably sized slot. I know you can convert tasks into the calendar, but there is no duration, so they are entered as a reminder effectively. That's also why I never got on with the Outlook task manager, because all I had was a huge list of email reminders that I kept snoozing, because I couldn't quickly schedule them when I was processing them.
You should use the #tag to tag tasks (not in the notes section) so you can click on a tag and you will then see all tasks associated with that #tag. For example, speak to #john about presentation. It gets highlighted and when you click on it you should see all tasks associated with #john. Also, Microsoft don’t know where they are going with tasks. They have to many products that does the same thing and keep brining out other apps. There’s also Microsoft Lists! MS Todo is half decent but lacking basic features. Todoist is where it’s at in terms of the go to standard for task apps imo. Cheers
Do. you have anything that goes through how to set up and use To Do like you do? You just dipped a little toe into how you use it but not how to set it up like you do.
Heya, i use outlook tasks rather than to do, to do is hard to customise. If you’d like my outlook task set up email Me & i can try to send something to you
When trying to implement your task filter in Outlook 365 - where 'Start Date' 'on or before' 'Today' I get a 'This Value is not valid' error message. Any ideas on a fix?
Hey! Glad you’re trying my method out! Please email me on david@xlconsulting-asia.com I can maybe try to help, & send screenshots or a screen video of what you’re seeing
Great video. When you say don't create a new Office 365 Group when creating a Planner. Are you saying create one generic one in Office 365 then use this to assign to all new Planners you create? Why is thy and what is the downside of using the same one for all Planners?
Glad you liked it! I meant it can be easy to fall into the trap of creating many obsolete o365 groups with just a plan in each. It’s fine to have them all in one group the downside would be everyone has access to all but if you’re cool with that then it works fine!
Thanks this was very helpful, I was very excited to see Loop come into play but it seems better fit for pure collaboration. Quick question, is there any sync available for tasks between different outlook accounts? I have to use several accounts from clients and would be helpful to see all tasks. And I completely agree with the due dates, they shouldn't be primary driver of priority. I will give Tasks another try now that I know I can use categories to group them!
Also any thoughts on if Microsoft will ever support subtasks/related tasks? I sometimes have a task that consist of more individual tasks that build up to each other. I may create a prefix for a task group and I can tell them apart but still know they are related in some way.
I’m glad you like it! Yea, due dates suck! To answer your questions… 1. Sync between outlook accounts is tricky, the term account is tricky, you can have accounts on a server or exchange online, you can have multiple email accounts in one outlook (in which case you would see emails & tasks from both/all), you can have one account lining to multiple outlook files. 2. Sub tasks exist in to do, planner but not outlook tasks. I use the trick where I write XTRA to say there are sub tasks 3. Dependent tasks don’t exist in any of these apps unfortunately, Microsoft wants you to pay for project for that (& also Gantt charts etc.)
I love the Today view in Todo. Yes, you need to spend 5 min to decide what is important that day, but don’t we all need that? Outlook Tasks had some features I didn’t know about. But damn, it’s so ugly.
Dear David, Thank you for the video, very I formative. Any chance you could help me with suggesting an app to do the following. I have an excel file with a list of to do things which have date and time when my team needs to have a reminder on these. Also every line will have a name of the person who should receive that reminder (task). So I want to be able to upload the excel file and than all the people from the group receive reminders on their phone. (Same way my Samsung is synchronized with Microsoft to do and I instantly get renders in my calendar when I create them in Microsoft To Do. Looking forward to you're reply, Kind regards, Miljan
Hi for something like that which spans across difffernt apps with excel as an input you can explore using Power Automate which allows apps to flow together using triggers
Anyone know the settings specifications to set up Outlook Tasks the way presented here? I sent this video to myself years ago after finding this helpful, but I don't remember how I set it up and trying to replicate on a new account. Thanks!
I agree 100%. Now if I could just get my Outlook to sync (in a meaningful way) with a mobile or web app! Let me know if you have figured that out. The best thing I've come up with is syncing with Informant. But it's not pretty or easy.
Yessss I dread the day when my customised outlook task list will be discontinued, I live & die by that! It does sync to my iPhone reminders app but I end up using mostly on my PC
Do you use all of these tools in tandem? Do your teams get confused where to go to have a consolidated view of all their tasks across projects and context? I use Planner for high level project planning and task tracking, SharePoint lists for more customized task tracking (Planner is not customizable), and OneNote for daily/team huddle action items. Some of my staff get confused on where to go to view and update their tasks. How do you manage the use of all the tools?
Hi it’s hard but yeah I use planner for team tasks & the others for personal level tasks, I don’t use all of them but planner, outlook & one note regularly
I would stick to having your staff use Outlook and Teams. Your Planner Tasks/To Do and Sharepoint Lists can automatically feed into those and they can manage stuff there. They should already use Outlook and Teams for communications, so getting them to adopt these new features will be more successful than trying to get them to learn and use Planner, List, and/or OneNote
Microsoft Whiteboard works well with handwritten stuff and its now compatible with Loop so it may be able to convert handwritten stuff into Loop tasks, I have not yet tried though
It was rolled out in Teams publicly a few months ago and Outlook only last week but the full Loop experience isn't available yet. If you cannot see it in Teams it may be that your IT staff has blocked it or you're not in one of the earlier channels.
it's simply not out yet, there are very limited subset of loop feature within Teams only, which can only be posted on group conversations and not on a channel, at least at this point for me it's not worth using.
Now there’s also Microsoft Lists. Microsoft is really needs to streamline their apps offerings. Who on Earth thinks it’s a wise idea to have Projects, Planner, To Do, Lists, OneNote, Loop, Excel, Outlook Tasks, Teams, etc… for planing, to do lists and notes? Those 9 could be combined into 3 really.
I sort of agree… tasks in teams is supposed to do that but doesn’t reallu achieve it sadly
Completely agree. This demonstrates my frustration with Microsoft in most things. Keep it simple!
I tend to agree, there are way too many apps… but watching this video I can see some of the benefits of having apps that work differently because we all process things differently in our brains. What will work better for one person may not work for another at all. That being said, they still don’t need 10+ applications for tasks/lists.
I love MS To-Do but this was a really great and thorough demonstration 👏
Thanks! Glad you like it 😃
I use GTD, and my outlook calendar is an extension of my brain, it's the control centre of how I manage everything for work. The biggest challenge is processing all of my inputs (inbox) that will be email requests, thoughts, notes etc into one single task list that i can then transpose into a calendar entry. It would be a huge benefit if any of these apps allow you to define the duration of a task without fudging a start and end date, and then allowing you to drag and drop into outlook calendar into a suitably sized slot. I know you can convert tasks into the calendar, but there is no duration, so they are entered as a reminder effectively. That's also why I never got on with the Outlook task manager, because all I had was a huge list of email reminders that I kept snoozing, because I couldn't quickly schedule them when I was processing them.
Good feedback, I like the GTD method, you’re right that all these task apps fall short of an ideal system
You should use the #tag to tag tasks (not in the notes section) so you can click on a tag and you will then see all tasks associated with that #tag. For example, speak to #john about presentation. It gets highlighted and when you click on it you should see all tasks associated with #john.
Also, Microsoft don’t know where they are going with tasks. They have to many products that does the same thing and keep brining out other apps. There’s also Microsoft Lists! MS Todo is half decent but lacking basic features. Todoist is where it’s at in terms of the go to standard for task apps imo.
Cheers
Yeah the hash tags are good, sorry I didn’t I didn’t include everything in this video. Agreed it’s a bit all over the place with Microsoft herr
I could not get #subject to work in the title of the task name. is that where you were saying that it would register?
Do. you have anything that goes through how to set up and use To Do like you do? You just dipped a little toe into how you use it but not how to set it up like you do.
Heya, i use outlook tasks rather than to do, to do is hard to customise. If you’d like my outlook task set up email
Me & i can try to send something to you
When trying to implement your task filter in Outlook 365 - where 'Start Date' 'on or before' 'Today' I get a 'This Value is not valid' error message. Any ideas on a fix?
Hey! Glad you’re trying my method out! Please email me on david@xlconsulting-asia.com I can maybe try to help, & send screenshots or a screen video of what you’re seeing
Great video. When you say don't create a new Office 365 Group when creating a Planner. Are you saying create one generic one in Office 365 then use this to assign to all new Planners you create? Why is thy and what is the downside of using the same one for all Planners?
Glad you liked it! I meant it can be easy to fall into the trap of creating many obsolete o365 groups with just a plan in each. It’s fine to have them all in one group the downside would be everyone has access to all but if you’re cool with that then it works fine!
Thanks this was very helpful, I was very excited to see Loop come into play but it seems better fit for pure collaboration. Quick question, is there any sync available for tasks between different outlook accounts? I have to use several accounts from clients and would be helpful to see all tasks.
And I completely agree with the due dates, they shouldn't be primary driver of priority. I will give Tasks another try now that I know I can use categories to group them!
Also any thoughts on if Microsoft will ever support subtasks/related tasks? I sometimes have a task that consist of more individual tasks that build up to each other.
I may create a prefix for a task group and I can tell them apart but still know they are related in some way.
I’m glad you like it! Yea, due dates suck! To answer your questions… 1. Sync between outlook accounts is tricky, the term account is tricky, you can have accounts on a server or exchange online, you can have multiple email accounts in one outlook (in which case you would see emails & tasks from both/all), you can have one account lining to multiple outlook files. 2. Sub tasks exist in to do, planner but not outlook tasks. I use the trick where I write XTRA to say there are sub tasks 3. Dependent tasks don’t exist in any of these apps unfortunately, Microsoft wants you to pay for project for that (& also Gantt charts etc.)
I love the Today view in Todo. Yes, you need to spend 5 min to decide what is important that day, but don’t we all need that?
Outlook Tasks had some features I didn’t know about. But damn, it’s so ugly.
Personally I prefer that it pre suggests what should be on my daily list without me needing to make the list, but if it works for you that’s great!
Dear David,
Thank you for the video, very I formative. Any chance you could help me with suggesting an app to do the following. I have an excel file with a list of to do things which have date and time when my team needs to have a reminder on these. Also every line will have a name of the person who should receive that reminder (task). So I want to be able to upload the excel file and than all the people from the group receive reminders on their phone. (Same way my Samsung is synchronized with Microsoft to do and I instantly get renders in my calendar when I create them in Microsoft To Do.
Looking forward to you're reply,
Kind regards,
Miljan
Hi for something like that which spans across difffernt apps with excel as an input you can explore using Power Automate which allows apps to flow together using triggers
Anyone know the settings specifications to set up Outlook Tasks the way presented here? I sent this video to myself years ago after finding this helpful, but I don't remember how I set it up and trying to replicate on a new account. Thanks!
Hi Jonathan I’ll make a video soon of how to do it
I agree 100%. Now if I could just get my Outlook to sync (in a meaningful way) with a mobile or web app! Let me know if you have figured that out. The best thing I've come up with is syncing with Informant. But it's not pretty or easy.
Yessss I dread the day when my customised outlook task list will be discontinued, I live & die by that! It does sync to my iPhone reminders app but I end up using mostly on my PC
Your tasks are not time-dependent? I'm quite surprised.
Some are but most are not but that really changes for everyone depending on the job they do!
good content, but you need a better mic.
Thanks for the feedback, noted I’ll bear in mind
Do you use all of these tools in tandem? Do your teams get confused where to go to have a consolidated view of all their tasks across projects and context? I use Planner for high level project planning and task tracking, SharePoint lists for more customized task tracking (Planner is not customizable), and OneNote for daily/team huddle action items. Some of my staff get confused on where to go to view and update their tasks. How do you manage the use of all the tools?
Hi it’s hard but yeah I use planner for team tasks & the others for personal level tasks, I don’t use all of them but planner, outlook & one note regularly
I would stick to having your staff use Outlook and Teams. Your Planner Tasks/To Do and Sharepoint Lists can automatically feed into those and they can manage stuff there. They should already use Outlook and Teams for communications, so getting them to adopt these new features will be more successful than trying to get them to learn and use Planner, List, and/or OneNote
Does anyone know of an app that supports handwritten tasks \ Todo list?
Microsoft Whiteboard works well with handwritten stuff and its now compatible with Loop so it may be able to convert handwritten stuff into Loop tasks, I have not yet tried though
i cannot find the loop in my microsoft
It was rolled out in Teams publicly a few months ago and Outlook only last week but the full Loop experience isn't available yet. If you cannot see it in Teams it may be that your IT staff has blocked it or you're not in one of the earlier channels.
@@learnspreadsheets Will Loop also be available for personal MS account?
it's simply not out yet, there are very limited subset of loop feature within Teams only, which can only be posted on group conversations and not on a channel, at least at this point for me it's not worth using.
@@JJ-jd2dq I agree.