Knocking Productivity Out of the Park with Microsoft Outlook Tasks

Just to be clear, there is a school of thought that suggests that multitasking is unproductive. So there is science, and there is reality. The reality is, I’m not going to segregate my day to some robotic schedule that does not allow for real life and real business. There has to be a balance between focus and important distraction, and there has to be a way back from the brink of complete and utter unmitigated chaos – no plan, no list, no schedule, just do what comes to mind first. There is a balance and there is a way back, and the tool I use to be truly productive is Outlook Tasks, a default module in Microsoft Outlook.

In this article, I will explain tips and tricks and theory of productivity using Microsoft Outlook. As I am writing this, I am flipping back and forth between emails coming in, scheduled calls, and my task list, which may or may not require me to get out of my chair, AND whatever else pops in my brain.

Theory

The main theory that supports my own personal productivity is that the grey matter between your ears is a terrible place to keep stuff. Although your brain/ nervous system is pretty amazing, it sucks at multitasking, so if you are a die-hard multitasker, you need additional external systems to make sure nothing falls through the cracks. These ideas, and much of my execution strategy comes from David Allen and his best selling book Getting Things Done.

Supporting theories are capture, organization, and consistency. A productivity system must capture most, if not all, of your tasks related to your various responsibilities; a system that only captures work, but fails to capture family or community responsibilities is not balanced. Once captured, you must be able to easily prioritize in an organized fashion each and every task. As good as any system or technology is, if you do not consistently use it, you will not find the productivity that it promises to deliver.

Prerequisites

Although you can apply some of the prior theory and practices you’ll find next, this article targets Microsoft Office(2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019) users who use Outlook to receive and send emails and have it open all workday long or longer. That being said, the main prerequisite is a system that captures email messages as tasks or to-do items and combines them into a single list with other tasks. The person that will benefit the most from this article works in an office, or even at home, they are tied to a computer for at least 8 hours a day.

I’m a big fan of Microsoft Office 365. To Do is the Office 365 task list management tool. It will do all these things, but only really works if you have a single email address for your whole life.

Practice

Curiously, Tasks is rarely used by most Outlook users. In Tasks, you can create any sort of task you can imagine, and assign a due date, priority, and even make tasks recurring with fantastic detail. One essential feature of Tasks is that when you flag an email in the Mail module of Outlook, the email is added as a task to the To-Do List. This To-Do List is where I keep every important thing I need to do; not in my brain, because that is a terrible place to keep a list of important things to do.

One of my favourite things in my office is my plant. I bought it from Ikea at least 9 years ago. Really all it needs is water. I have a recurring task with the subject, “Water Dracaena”, and I water my plant once a week. Now don’t judge me, thinking that watering a plant isn’t important. Dracaenas are known to be high oxygen producing plants, and how many other people do you know that have kept an office plant alive for 9 years? There is no way my plant would be with me without Tasks.

Capture

The first step of the process is your digital capture. Everything that comes into inbox, ears, eyes, brain, etc. that requires further action must be captured. If you are an email junky, than your system has to be able to flag email that you receive. You’ll also need to manually enter tasks that you think of before you get distracted. Our mind thinks close to two thoughts a second, so if you think of a task that needs to be done, you better record it before you forget.

I make all of my emails go into one Inbox in Outlook; I have one personal email address, and four separate business addresses, all being captured into one Inbox. It isn’t uncommon to have multiple email accounts in Outlook, and you may or may not need to segregate because of work policies, but if you can, force all your accounts into one Inbox. Forcing all your accounts into one Inbox isn’t the default, so you may need to ask a tech for help.

I also enter into Tasks the things I think about when I think about them. Some of the things I have entered in Tasks for tomorrow are Pickup Forgotten Tablet, Cancel Client Email Accounts, Pick Up Mail. When I think of something, I enter it into Tasks; if I am not at my computer, I use my phone. There are multiple apps that can connect to your Office 365 account, and route tasks directly into your Outlook. I can even say, “Hey Siri, add to my task list, mow the lawn.” Although recording your to-do’s in the moment won’t be natural at first, it is critical to peaceful productivity.

Tiny Tangent: Inbox to Zero is a Waste of Time

I wasn’t sure if I should write about this under Capture or Organization, so I put it in the middle. I think that moving email into folders and/or deleting emails and/or in general trying to achieve an Inbox with zero messages is a waste of time and unnecessary. The only caveat is if your company requires it for collaboration or regulatory reasons. I primarily use the Unread view in Outlook Favorites to review every email and sometimes revert to the Inbox if I feel like I missed something. I review every email in this way, anything new comes into Unread, I either action it immediately, flag it for further action, delete it, or read it and leave it. When I click on a different folder and come back to Unread, there is nothing in it, except a sense of peace knowing that everything is captured. Anything I’ve read and left can easily be recalled in the Inbox via the Search Bar (I do this often, best filing system ever), and anything that I flagged goes into Tasks.

Organization

Once you’ve captured everything, for the first time, or at any time, (my Unread view of emails is blank multiple times a day) the next step is Organization. The To-Do List is the default view in the Task module. There you can organize your tasks by due date, priority, category, and more. When I flag emails or enter a task manually, they appear at the top of my list, unorganized, so to speak. I might action unorganized tasks immediately, and then check them off, or leave them as unorganized to keep them top of mind. In general, I give each task a Due Date and a priority. Some tasks I assign a category, which in my case is the role of responsibility (family, client x, executive, soccer, etc). How you organize your tasks is up to you.

Once my tasks are organized I sort by date and priority and start doing the stuff at the top. Once a task is done, I click the red check mark on the task line, and it disappears. I am often surprised when at the beginning of the day I have a super long task list, and then by 1 o’clock I am picking and choosing what to do because the list is small. If tasks don’t get done today, they will be on the top of the list for the next day. At the beginning of the day, anything not done from yesterday gets prioritized anew.

Consistency

Would it surprise you to learn that this doesn’t work unless you consistently capture everything and organize your To-Do List? Every email you get, even during the middle of your workday, has to be flagged, unless you action it immediately. Even then I often flag emails and check them off just for the satisfaction. Everything you think of that needs to be done, should be entered as a task. You constantly and consistently return to your To-Do List, all day every day. And this is the magic: you’ll be crushing it, checking tasks off left and right, and then some duffuss, who doesn’t prioritize anything but what’s on their mind in the moment, will come to your office to distract you, and 30 minutes later you’ve lost a good portion of your day; but you, you’ll return to capture and prioritization and pick up like duffuses don’t exist.

According to my Completed Task in Outlook, I’ve been doing this since Mid 2011; capturing, prioritizing, consistently getting stuff done despite distractions and a multitude of responsibilities. Life only gets busier, my task list only gets longer, but if it gets captured, it gets organized, and everything, EVERYTHING, that gets organized gets done. Even my kids know, and I make them take ownership.

Kid 3: Dad, did you sign me up for that Zoom thing
Me: No. Did you send me an email?
Kid 3: But Dad!
Me: No “buts”. Send me an email.
Kid 3: Fine

Kid 3 sends me an email, it gets captured, prioritized, and done.

You too can get it all done; you can knock productivity out of the park by consistently capturing and organizing all of your tasks. It’s not easy and natural to start, but I promise it is worth it.