The Daily Task List: Tasks on the Calendar

Part of efficient time management is making time for one’s tasks. To help our customers get an accurate view of their time commitments, we have added the Daily Task List in the Calendar.


Outlook 12 Calendar

The Daily Task List sits below the main calendar surface and shows tasks arranged by start date or due date. In this way, you can see your tasks along with your appointments to get a full picture of what you need to do on a given day or over a week. For example, on Friday I have more appointments than on Thursday, which means that I have less time for tasks on Friday.


Outlook 12 Calendar: Daily Task List Close Up

The Daily Task List is a great place to balance your tasks and appointments. You can rearrange these tasks by dragging them from one day to the next. If you know that a particular task is going to take some time, you can drag it onto the Calendar to make an appointment - without coercing a dialog. For example, I know that a customer call always takes some time, so I dragged a task "Call Customer" onto the Calendar to create an appointment. Once I finish the call, I can mark the corresponding task complete. Dragging a task onto the calendar creates a 30 minute appointment and keeps the task in your task list. Once the appointment is on the Calendar, you can move it, drag it to make it a longer or shorter appointment, or open it to add more information; it is just an appointment. You can drag a task onto the calendar multiple times - sometimes one 30 minute block of time isn't enough. In the task, there is a note in the infobar letting you know when scheduled time in your calendar to do the task.

The tasks that are shown in the Daily Task List are the same tasks that are shown on the To-Do Bar, and in the same order – rearranging one effects the other. Like the To-Do Bar, uncompleted tasks roll over to the next day. Tasks without a start date or due date don't show up in the Daily Task List. The calendar and the Daily Task List together can be used as a record of how you have spent your time and what you have accomplished; regardless of the arrangement, completed tasks appear on the day they were completed. If you like a cleaner look, you can also turn off showing completed tasks all together. 

Like the To-Do Bar and the Navigation Pane, the Daily Task List can be minimized or expanded to provide more room for viewing the calendar surface, as shown below. When the Daily Task List is minimized, it shows you the number of active and completed tasks over the period shown. You can minimize the Daily Task List either through the View menu or by dragging it closed. Similarly, you can expand the Daily Task List to show more tasks by dragging it.


Outlook 12 Calendar: Everything Minimized

Throughout the product, we wanted to make it easy for you to enter tasks – to get them out of your head. Like the easy task entry line in the To-Do Bar, you can enter tasks directly into the Daily Task List. Click anywhere in the Daily Task List to enter a new task. The new task will appear in the column where you clicked.


Close up on "Click to Add Task"

Hopefully you will find the Daily Task List a useful addition to the overall task management suite.