Stay on Top of Your Schedule with these Tips for Calendar and Tasks in Classic Outlook

As a busy professional, managing your time efficiently is crucial. Outlook offers powerful tools to help you stay organized and productive. In this post, we’ll explore some essential tips and tricks for optimizing your Outlook calendar and task management, from our Outlook Basics: Calendar and Tasks workshop.

For more on methods to improve your time management, see "Mastering Time Management: Five Techniques for Busy Professionals."

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Getting Started with Outlook Calendar

Outlook’s calendar is a versatile tool for scheduling meetings and appointments. Here are some key features and shortcuts to help you get the most out of it:

• Accessing the Calendar: Open the calendar view by selecting the calendar icon from the folder pane or using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + 2.

  
  

• Viewing Options: Customize your calendar view by day, work week, week, or month. You can even create specific views like two weeks or non-consecutive days.

  
  

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• Creating Appointments and Meetings: Use Ctrl + Shift + A to quickly create a new appointment or Ctrl + Shift + Q for a meeting invite. You can also type natural language dates like “next Friday” or “three months from now” in the date fields.

Advanced Calendar Tips

To truly harness the power of Outlook’s calendar, it’s essential to explore some of its more advanced features. These tips will help you manage your schedule with greater efficiency and precision:

• Shared Calendars: View and manage shared calendars within your organization. You can see your colleagues’ availability and schedule meetings accordingly.

  
  

  You can share your calendar with your colleagues by following these steps:

  • In the Calendar view, go to the Manage Calendars group on the Home tab, click Share Calendar.

  • Choose the calendar you would like to share.

  • Click Add… to share your calendar with other users.

  • Click OK.

  • Adjust the Permission Level in the Permissions section.

  • Click OK.

    
    

  After you've shared your calendar, don't forget to use the Mark as Private option for any sensitive or personal items on your calendar.

  
  

• Scheduling Assistant: This feature helps you find the best times for meetings by displaying everyone’s availability and suggesting optimal times.

  
  

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• Backstage View: Adjust settings like working hours, time zones, and default meeting durations in the backstage view. Access it by clicking File > Options > Calendar.

Task Management with Outlook

Outlook’s task management features help you keep track of your to-dos and ensure nothing falls through the cracks:

• Creating Tasks: Use Ctrl + Shift + K to create a new task. You can add details like start and due dates, priority levels, and reminders.

  
  

• Flagging Emails: Quickly create tasks from emails by flagging them. This is useful for follow-ups and ensuring important messages are addressed.

  
  

• To-Do List: View your tasks and flagged emails in the to-do list.

  
  

You can also drag and drop emails to the task pane to create new tasks.

Maximizing Efficiency

Here are even more tips will help you boost your productivity and manage your workload more effectively:

• Quick Steps: Automate repetitive actions with Quick Steps. For example, you can create an Outlook Quick Step to move emails to a specific folder and mark them as read.

  
  

  For a more in-depth discussion of Quick Steps, request the Webinar Companion Handout for our short course: "Email Management using Outlook Quick Steps."

  
  

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• Color Categories: Organize your tasks and calendar items with color categories. This helps you quickly identify and prioritize your work.

  
  

• Status Reports: Use the status report feature to send updates on tasks. This is particularly useful for team projects and keeping stakeholders informed.

Ready for More?

By leveraging these Outlook features, you can streamline your workflow and save valuable time. These features are just a few ways how you can use Outlook to enhance our productivity.

Follow our series, “Manage Email and Tasks Using Outlook,” for more gems and more productivity hacks. Subscribe to our Eventbrite page to be the first to know about this and our other live interactive classes. See you in class!

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