Microsoft Outlook – How to create Tasks?

Task is one of the useful feature in Microsoft Outlook which allows us to track the activities or tasks we perform. For example, if you need to generate a report on particular day, and you want to remember it; usually you write it down in some place to not to forget the activity you need to perform, right?. Instead, you can create a Task in Outlook & set a reminder to it; it reminds you to perform the activity on particular day. It’s very useful feature, right? Isn’t it?

Microsoft Outlook provides an easy to use User Interface to create Tasks. Below are the steps to create a Task in Microsoft Outlook.

Step 1. Open Microsoft Outlook. Go to Home tab. Under New group, click on New Items. That will display a menu; and select Task menu item. Outlook opens a Task window, to allows us to create a Task.

Tip: Shortcut to this step is, Ctrl + Shift + K. By using these key combinations, we can open a Task window to create a new Task.

Step 2. Task window provides an useful user interface to allow us to create & manage a Task. In order to create a Task, we need to provide the details to below mentioned fields from Task window;

• Subject, where we need to enter the short & meaningful name for the Task, to identify it easily. Then, where to provide full details of the Task? Task window provides an area, we call it as Task body, where we can provide complete details of the Task.

• Start date, the date when the task or activity is going to start. We can enter the expected task completion date in Due date. If the Task do not have any end date, we can set the value None to the Due date field. Similarly, if you want to track the already started task, you can set the value None to Start date field.

  Tip: When you click on the Start date or Due date fields, Outlook will display a date control, from where you can select the date or if date is not applicable to the fields, you can select the value None from the date control.

• We can set the priority as Low, Normal or High from Priority field for the Task.

• Status can be updated as Not Started, In Progress, Completed, Waiting on someone else or Deferred from Status field. This will set with appropriate value as Task progress. For example, when the Task is completed, you can update the Status field as Completed.

• Percentage completion of the task can be set from % Complete field. When set it as 100%, the Task will mark as Completed.

• By checking the Reminder checkbox, we can set the reminder to the Task; add date & time to when to remind. When set this, you will get a reminder on the particular date & time. That will helpful to remind the activity need to perform.

Step 3. Once the changes are done, click on Save & Close button which is in Actions group. This will save the Task.

🙂 Sahida