Microsoft Outlook – How to create Tasks?

The Task is one of the useful features in Microsoft Outlook which allows us to track the activities or tasks we perform. For example, if you need to generate a report on a particular day, and you want to remember it; usually write it down in some place so as 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 a particular day. It’s a 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 the Home tab. Under New group, click on New Items. That will display a menu, and select the Task menu item. Outlook opens a Task window, to allow us to create a Task.

Tip: The 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 a useful user interface to allow us to create & manage a Task. In order to create a Task, we need to provide the details to the below-mentioned fields from the 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? The Task window provides an area, which we call a Task body, where we can provide complete details of the Task.

• Start date, is the date when the task or activity is going to start. We can enter the expected task completion date in the Due date. If the Task does 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 the 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 the 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 the Priority field for the Task.

• Status can be updated as Not Started, In Progress, Completed, Waiting on someone else or Deferred from the Status field. This will be set with appropriate value as the 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 the % Complete field. When setting as 100%, the Task will mark as Completed.

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

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

🙂 Sahida