Managing Tasks in Outlook

posted at 10:32:09
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

This is a basic overview of viewing tasks and setting your view criteria. The following is based on Outlook 2002 and should allow you to be more "GTD"-like in your task processes

To Add A new Task Category

In task view, double click on any existing task to open the edit window.
At the bottom right of the screen, click the "Categories..." button then "Master Category list..."
Type in the name of the task and press "Add"

To Group Tasks by category

View > Current View > Customise Current View
Click on "Group By" and Select Categories. You can then further group by the remaining fields, i.e. date due.

To show only certain categories

View > Current View > Customise Current View
Filter > Advanced

Under "Define More Criteria" Click on the "Fields" drop-down and select "All Task Fields" Choose the "Categories" Option. You can now select your criteria:

Contains 'x'
Is 'x'
Doesn't contain 'x'
Is Empty
Is Not Empty

Then enter the criteria for the filter. For example if I didn't want to show my "@ Personal Category" I would select

"Categories" "Doesn't Contain" "Personal"

Note that I've left the "@", as I discovered it wouldn't show any tasks at all as all the categories contain "@". Also, for some reason the version of Outlook I'm using only seems to allow you to do one "Doesn't contain" filter on the category title (Don't know why that it), applying a second redenders both useless

Only show uncompleted tasks

Follow the above steps but choose the following filter to define your view

"Status" "not equal to "Completed"

Add a new task - Keyboard Shortcut

If you are not in the Task view, hit

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [K]

To bring up the Task Details window

Otherwise, within the Task View hit

[Ctrl] + [N]