Using Recurring Tasks in Outlook

Feb 10, 2011

What Are Recurring Tasks?

Recurring tasks are a type of task in Outlook that allows you to create a task once, and then have it recreated automatically after a designated time interval. You can make any existing task into a recurring task by simply using the Recurrence button at the top of the task window.

An example of why you would create them might be a Monday status report that is due each week. You can cause that task to recreate itself every Monday morning in your Outlook tasks list. Unlike repeating appointments, however, future instances of recurring tasks are not placed in your task list until the previous one is marked complete or deleted. So they are a convenient way to keep a repeating task on track without burdening your task list with a long list of future tasks. Outlook’s implementation of recurring tasks is quite well done. It provides a lot of flexibility and power.

Using Recurring Tasks with MYN

Recurring tasks in Outlook work perfectly with the MYN system. In fact, I think they work even better in the MYN-configured Outlook task list than in the out-of-box Outlook task setting. In the MYN list, when you mark them complete, they disappear (they don’t in normal Outlook). And they only reappear when they are next needed; they then pop into the top of the MYN task list at just the right time. Perfect.

There is one thing to be aware of, however, if you are just now starting the MYN system in Outlook. The MYN Outlook system, as you may know, focuses on the start date of tasks, not the due date. If you create new recurring tasks (created with a start date) all is fine. But if you already have recurring tasks in your Outlook system that are based on due dates (or have no dates), they do not work with MYN Outlook configurations. And if you want to convert them to being start-date tasks, you need to delete and reenter those tasks as start-date based tasks. Otherwise they will no longer work. And don’t just try to edit them by adding the start date—that won’t work either. Rather, be sure to fully delete and then fully reenter the tasks; then they will work fine with MYN. That’s my only caution. Otherwise, recurring tasks are an excellent tool to use with MYN.

Two Kinds of Recurring Tasks in Windows Outlook, One in Mac Outlook

Probably the most confusing aspect of Outlook recurring tasks is that, in Windows, there are really two kinds of recurring tasks, and understanding the difference between them can be confusing. One I call a scheduled recurring task, and the other I call an interval-since-completion recurring task. The former exists in both Windows and Mac, the latter only in Windows. The two are nearly identical, but each has its own best use. In describing recurring tasks, I’ll sort these out.

Finding the Recurrence Button

You may know you can mark a task as recurring by navigating to the Recurrence button at the top of the Task dialog box. In Outlook 2007, 2010, and Outlook Mac 2011, that Recurrence button is found in the middle of the Task Ribbon at the top of the Task dialog box (shown below), and in earlier versions it is found in the middle of the main toolbar at the top of the Task dialog box.

When you click the Recurrence button you are next given some choices. And this is where it gets interesting because there are a lot of recurrence options, particularly in Windows Outlook, and they can be confusing. I’ll start with Windows, and then later below show you the Mac.

Choosing Recurrence Options in Windows

When you click the Recurrence button in Windows, the following Task Recurrence dialog box opens in Windows:

This dialog defaults to a weekly Recurrence pattern (see the upper left corner). Since this is the most common and easiest to understand, let’s work with that as an example.

Creating Scheduled Recurring Tasks

As I said above, in Windows there are two kinds of recurring tasks and the first is called Scheduled. Why create these? Sometimes you want a task dated to a specific day every week (Thursday say, as above). To do that, leave the Recur button (at the top middle of the dialog box) in its default selected state of Recur with a week count of 1, and set the day of week below that to Thursday. This will initially create a task in your list with a date set to the closest Thursday. When you save it, you can tell that task is recurring in your task list because the task icon changes to add a tiny double arrow in a circle.

After you finish that task and you mark it complete (or delete its instance), this is where recurrence kicks in. A new task is magically created in your tasks list, and the date is set to the subsequent Thursday. This keeps going on forever, unless you set an end date in the dialog above. By the way, if you never complete the first task and so you do not mark it complete, the old instance of the task remains alone on into the future (you don’t end up with two identical tasks come next Friday).

You can experiment with this behavior in an unfiltered task list (like the Simple List view in the Tasks folder). If you create a weekly scheduled recurring task there and then mark it complete (or delete its instance), you’ll immediately see another task appear there, with the date set ahead to the next week. Mark that complete and another task appears with the date set to the next week out, and so on.

This works especially well in our MYN configured TaskPad or To-Do Bar. Since those views are date- and completion- filtered, after you mark the task complete it disappears, and it only reappears when its new start date equals today. It then stays there until you complete it, and the cycle repeats. So the TWC-MYN design is perfect for using Outlook recurring tasks.

The other settings in that dialog box are fairly self-explanatory, except for the regenerate button, which I cover below. When creating a scheduled recurring task, changing the interval or day-of-week settings in the recurrence dialog box results in fairly predictable outcomes; setting the interval to 2 for example causes the task date to advance every other Friday, and so on.

Be Careful When Setting Day of Week

Something not immediately obvious is that you can select more than one day of the week at the same time (these are check boxes, not radio buttons), which allows you to create an odd sequenced task recurrence within the week. That would be a rare need, but it may get set by accident. For instance if today is Wednesday, Wednesday is set by default when you create the recurrence settings. But if you intend to set it for Friday, when you check the Friday box, Wednesday remains set and you might not notice that; the task will now regenerate twice a week. So you need to remember to uncheck today’s box when you create the task for another day of the week.

Pay Attention to Setting the Start Date

Note that when using the MYN system you need to be attentive to what dates you set inside the task itself. Recurring tasks, to work right in MYN, must have a start date set on the task. But you may recall if you create tasks in the Tasks folder, (or anywhere in pre 2007 Outlook), it does not auto-set the start date, even if you set it inside the recurrence dialog box. So when using the MYN system you need to remember to fill in that start date inside the task (not just inside the recurrence dialog box). By the way, if you create a recurring task in the Outlook 2007/10 To-Do Bar, both dates are set by default, which is much better default behavior.

Interval-Since-Completion Recurring Tasks

The above is the story for Outlook’s scheduled recurring tasks. Let’s now talk about Outlook’s Interval-since-completion recurring tasks. These are only possible in Windows Outlook.

What are interval recurring tasks and why might you use them? Here’s an example. Let’s say you have a task to water your plants weekly and you initially created the task for a Friday, and you do water them every Friday. Then one week you are traveling and do not water until the following Wednesday when you return. In that case you would not want to start up again on the upcoming Friday (in two days); you might over-water the plants. Instead, you now want to wait to the next Wednesday to water, and continue from there. An Outlook interval-since-completion task is perfect for this.

So use these when you want to set an interval between task completion and the next task date. You do that by clicking the Regenerate new task button (in the middle of the dialog box above), and choosing the interval. In the dialog box example above, the interval unit is set to week(s); but if you had chosen a daily recurrence pattern in the upper left, the word week(s) would be replaced by day(s). Note that clicking Regenerate dims out the ability to choose a day of week. This highlights the key difference between a scheduled and interval recurring task in Outlook: one is recreated set to a specific day, while the other is recreated set to a specific interval after completion of the previous task.

You can experiment with this behavior in an unfiltered task list (like the Simple List view in the Tasks folder). If you create a weekly interval recurring task there and then mark it complete, you’ll immediately see another task appear there, with the date set ahead to the next week. However mark that complete and the next task that appears has the same date: one week out. So the date never advances beyond the interval period. That’s because interval recurring tasks always key their new date off the completion date, not a day of week.

Some Other Points on Windows Recurring Tasks

One side effect of the regenerating nature of a scheduled recurring task is how this regeneration occurs when “catching up” on missed tasks in MYN: if you miss marking a scheduled recurring task complete for many weeks, when you do finally mark it complete, it will seem to be hard to clear out (with MYN settings). What I mean by that is it will keep regenerating itself instantly each time you mark it complete. That will keep repeating until the date catches up to the current week, when it will finally disappear. Interval-since-completed tasks don’t do that in TWC-MYN settings, they just sit and wait until you mark them complete, and when you do they disappear completely until the next interval is up, no matter how long you have delayed past the original intended date. So if your task is not day-specific and possibly skipped often, an interval-since-completion task is probably your best bet, to avoid having to click through all the old occurrences when you do catch up. But if your task is always day specific, then use the scheduled recurring task, even if you expect to skip it often.

One other point. With a scheduled recurring task, deleting an instance of the task is similar to marking it complete. It will still regenerate. You need to “Delete All” to really get rid of it. With an interval task, deleting it removes it fully; there is no instance deletion vs. Delete All.

Using Recurring Tasks On Outlook Mac 2011

Recurring tasks are much simpler on the Mac; but as with many things on the Mac, due to that simplicity they lose a bit of power compared to Windows.

On the Mac, when you click the Recurrence button, you are given a drop-down menu with a few clear and simple choices, as shown below. They represent the most likely type of recurring task you will want to create.

The day and date inside the top three choices above vary depending on what day you create the task, or what start date is in the task. In the figure above, I created the task on Thursday February 10—that’s why you see the defaults you see in the top three choices. By the way, the Once Only selection is how you turn recurrence off once it’s set.  If none of these choices work for you, you’ll need to click the Custom… choice, and that leads to this dialog box:

This is similar to Windows but simpler to read anduse. Just choose the recurrence pattern in the first menu; set the number in the next; and set the day in the next. Set the start and end date, and you are done. Once saved, the task appears on your task list with a recurrence symbol in the recurrence column (that symbol looks like two tiny arrows in a circle). The magic begins when you finish that task; when you mark it complete it recreates itself for the next week (or on whatever schedule you chose).

The recurring task I just described corresponds to the scheduled recurring task I described above for Windows. That means when you mark it complete, no matter what day you do that, it recreates itself for the next scheduled day. So in the example above, let’s say you finally complete it the next Tuesday. When you mark it complete, a new task is created for the upcoming Thursday—it always keys off the day of the week that you set in the task.  There is no interval task like on Windows, which keys of last completion date, but I doubt you will miss that much—that is really just a special case and a bit hard to understand once in use. And not having them makes the recurring task experience much simpler on a Mac.

As with Windows, when using this with MYN on the Mac, always make sure you set a start date inside the recurring task itself, not just inside the recurrence dialog box. You need to set it in both places; remember, MYN uses start dates on all its tasks.

Wrap Up

So that’s the story on recurring tasks and how to set them. Don’t be afraid to use them, they work great!

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65 Responses to Using Recurring Tasks in Outlook

  1. David says:

    Hi

    I’m reading your book.

    About some tasks in the Now-Tasks that have a due date set, I find it useful to add a special code like you advice, for instance “DUE” in the object of the task, but then add a rule to tell that all tasks where object contains DUE shows in bold for instance.

    This will allow to have tasks that are either normal font, either bold, either underlined, eiteher underlined+bold.

    Thanks for the book!

    David

    • Angel Sanchez says:

      I’d like to set a task every Monday. However, I don’t want to see that task in my task list until the next Monday. When I click done, I want that to disappear and not appear again until the next Monday. Is this possible?

  2. Anubhav says:

    Is there a way we can avoid clogging up the ToDo bar with 3 recurrence event for me in my daily list. I want to see the meetings schedule but not the reminders/appointments that I have setup for myself. The reminers/appointments are only for the Outlook to remind be of doing some task, and I would not like them to clog my ToDo bar which has the Calendar , Appointments for the day, and Tasks list in bottom. Please help me here.

    • admin says:

      Hi Anubhav, I know of no way to show only certain appointments or filter out other ones from the appointment preview in the To-Do-Bar. Sorry! One thought is to use appointments only for major deadline tasks, and use the task list for most others, using recurring tasks as per this article, not recurring appointments. Just a thought.
      Michael

  3. Mr_IT says:

    The recurrence tool seems to be missing from my Outlook 2010 ribbon and I can’t seem to find it in the menus.

    Where did it go?

  4. admin says:

    Look at the top of the Task dialog box, not the main Outlook ribbon. You should be looking at an open task. Also, make sure it’s a true task, not a flagged mail task.

  5. claudio says:

    Michael,
    What about recurring tasks in toodledo and/or Utl?
    Thanks in advance

    • admin says:

      Recurring tasks work great in both. Pretty self-explanatory… just look for the Repeat feature. In ToodleDo web you may need to add the Repeat column (if not already in your view) to use it. To add columns click the tiny gray button with a plus sign on it at the right end of the column label bar.

      Michael

  6. Margaret Lowe says:

    Michael thank you for your helpful explenation on how to make a Task a reoccurring one. My problem has been in deleting the current task. When you choose ‘delete’ a window occurs asking if you want to delete all or the current task. Unfortunately the default is set at delete all. I have only recently obtained Microsoft Outlook 2010 and hoped that this would have been rectified, but it hasn’t. It is rare that anyone would want to delete all and more likely that the current task only would need to be deleted. I take care to change this request, but on occassions have lost all of a reoccurrring task and have not known until too late. Is there a way to change this default.

    • admin says:

      Hi Margaret
      Good suggestion for a change to Outlook, and I agree, I see no way to change the default. Caution is indeed required.
      Thanks for your comment.
      Michael

  7. Caarolyn says:

    For some reason, when I set my tasks to reoccur, it doesn’t work. I look ahead at the calendar and the task is not there. The only thing I did (that coincided with this problem) is that I accidentally deleted all tasks (above point about the default to “delete all”). Other than that, nothing has changed. I’ve looked at all of the parameters, and it all seems to be OK. I missed an important reminder because of this problem (and that is actually how I discovered there was a problem)

  8. Michael Linenberger says:

    Caarolyn
    So you are sure you did what it says above:
    “The MYN Outlook system, as you may know, focuses on the start date of tasks, not the due date. If you create new recurring tasks (created with a start date) all is fine. But if you already have recurring tasks in your Outlook system that are based on due dates (or have no dates), they do not work with MYN Outlook configurations. And if you want to convert them to being start-date tasks, you need to delete and reenter those tasks as start-date based tasks. Otherwise they will no longer work. And don’t just try to edit them by adding the start date—that won’t work either. Rather, be sure to fully delete and then fully reenter the tasks”

    So you are sure you did that? That’s the only issue I know of. Otherwise, recurring tasks work fine in Outlook with MYN
    Michael

  9. Claire says:

    I need to set a recurring – NOT regenerating – task every 2 years based on the due date. I cannot find a combination of settings/buttons to use to do this. Regenerating creates the new task but not with the correct due date.

  10. Susan says:

    Hi Michael,
    Thanks for all of this great information. My questions is can I change the recurrance of a task. Say I had the task set up for every 2 months and now I need the task every 6 weeks. Other than delete and add a new task I can not find the “recurrance tab” now that the task is set up. Thanks for any hlep you can give.

  11. Michael Linenberger says:

    Susan
    The recurrence button should be there. Click on the Tasks tab inside the task window itself… not there? What version of Outlook?
    Michael

  12. ASG says:

    Is there a way to have recurring tasks update in my list once i have shared and assigned them to someone else?

  13. missy says:

    I want to be able to look ahead and see what I have to do. For instance…if I set a task to mop every wednesday and clean bathrooms every thursday and do laundry every friday, I want to be able to look at my calendar next week or the week after and see all of that entered. I don’t want to have to wait for it to “regenerate” after I do it the week before. What do I do?

    • Michael Linenberger says:

      Missy,
      Sorry, no way to do that with Recurring tasks. My advise: don’t use recurring tasks, rather, hand enter all those future tasks (copy and paste). Then you can see them in the future in the Tasks folder. Only way I know how to do that.
      Michael

  14. Ottavia says:

    Missy, Michael,

    I have the exact same issue. I can’t believe there isn’t a way to see all your tasks ahead of time by using the recurring function. It seems so counter-intuitive…I need to see what I have to do ahead of time, I can’t just wait for the previous task was completed. I can’t believe someone hasn’t thought of that yet.

    • Mike R says:

      Missy, Michael, Ottavia;

      I have been diagnosed with ADD, and I desperately need a program that can Nag me until I tell it to go away for a specific amount of time or stop. I was forced to start using Outlook To-Do lists (my company removed Above & Beyond software from my computer), and my productivity has suffered greatly, I forget to perform many tasks just because I failed to mark a previous To-Do as completed. If I was my boss I would be very concerned about my performance.

      • Michael Linenberger says:

        Mike R:
        Well, you might either consider using the Reminder alert in Outlook tasks (though I normally don’t recommend them), or use Toodledo instead of Outlook and use many of its reminder/alert features.
        Michael

        • Mike R says:

          Thanks for your comments!
          Toodledo looks like a great program to try out but my company took almost all of our computer privileges away when they moved to Win 7 last fall, we are now only allowed to use software that is on the company approved list and have to schedule installations with our IT person. Its very frustrating, I am an hardware engineer and many of the components tat I might select for a design now include a CAD based simulation program to make the design process quicker and more reliable, this IT policy has limited my ability to do my job, on the other hand i understand the challenge to keep the company safe from computer kayos.

          Thanks again!

          • Michael Linenberger says:

            Mike R: don’t forget, Toodledo is mostly web-based. Works in any browser. So unless they blocked access to the Toodledo website, it should work.
            Michael

  15. Hugues Benoit says:

    Hi,

    I find it interesting but I am still confused about one aspect of regenerated tasks. Let me explain you. I work in a Finance Dept. and during month-end period, we all keep on doing the same tasks from one month to the next. As a result, I have started assigning tasks to people of my team and it enables me to follow up what exactly is done and when as I want to avoid that tasks are overdue.

    First month I assigned tasks to members of my team and it went fine. Now, second month I am doing the same but I thought now I want to repeat these tasks every next month. I used the functionality “Regenerate new task 1 month(s) after each task is complete” but when assignee answer me back when task is completed, I do not get any update on my Outlook that task is completed. Assignee does see on the other hand task being completed.

    I lost control on what is being performed and I cannot monitor any longer what is left to be done, what is done, what is overdue. That’s a real shame.

    My goal using tasks assigned to others :

    1) distribute tasks to members of my team
    2) assignee then becomes the owner of task and has to manage his/her time accordingly
    3) when task is done, task status needs to be updated accordingly (completed)
    4) I need to get notified when completed so I get an overview on who has done what and when and take action eventually when required (redistribute work among others for instance)
    5) tasks need to repeat themselves from one month to the next (month-end closing)

    Hope I am clear and thanks for your help.

    Hugues

    • Michael Linenberger says:

      Hugues
      I understand clearly what you are asking for. However In chapter 10 of my Outlook book you’ll see I recommend folks avoid the assign task feature, for a couple reasons. Now I see there may be one more reason– that they may not work well with recurring tasks. Wish I had a solution for you, but that’s where it stands with MYN. Maybe someone else who uses assign tasks will suggest a real solution.
      Best,
      Michael

    • Dan says:

      @ Hughes Benoit

      Why not try using SharePoint or Smartsheet or some other collaboration platform to share tasks with users /and/or/ ASSIGN tasks to users. We find that tasks assigned inside a central shared space such as a sharepoint site or a smartsheet are far more effective than client-based such as Outlook.

      Cheers!

  16. Matt says:

    I’ve discovered that, at least in Outlook 2010, when a task was originally created as a regenerating task (i.e., reoccurs x months after completed), I can’t find a way to edit that schedule. The recurrence button is missing from the ribbon (and grayed out in the “customize ribbon” area). I have no issues editing the reoccurence schedule for tasks that were created using the “reoccur every Thursday” method. Any thoughts?

    I would think there’d be a way to edit a task from one type ofreoccurence to the other, but I’m just not seeing it.

  17. Michael Linenberger says:

    Matt-
    I had not noticed that, but it makes sense. Thanks for pointing it out. This confirms my earlier warning: if you ever want to edit the “structural” parts of a recurring task (change the dates to a start date for example) you often need to delete the original task series and reenter the new one, to make it work. There seems to be hidden fields that get set on creation that you cannot edit. Not hard to do, just copy contents, delete task series, create new one, paste in old contents. Doing that is the safest route.
    Thanks for your note!
    Michael

  18. slightedge says:

    I too have ADD and sometimes use the Due app on my iPad. It keeps reminding you until you mark the task as done. However, I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of reasonably priced smart watches (that look reasonably normal on my narrow female wrist) that will vibrate and keep those reminders at hand, so to speak. It’s too bad that Apple doesn’t make something about half the size of the iPod, built to fit in a pocket and issue reminders (and perhaps monitor physical things like number of footsteps and heart rate.)

    Re reminders, I recently discovered the Fiverr website, where people offer their service for $5; I plan on checking whether I might get an action coach who’d nag me by e-mail. I don’t need a once a week meeting with a life coach…I need nattering reminders. I also gravitate to the Pronagger website, where Rachel shares great ideas for getting things done and offers a chat-type space where you can declare your intention and then follow up (pronagger.com).

  19. Raymond says:

    One last question, I promise!!

    I seem to have a lot of quite important tasks, but none of them qualify your stringent ‘Critical Now’ criteria in that I couldn’t honestly say about any of them ”I will stay on at work as long as I have to in order to finish this task.” Should I upgrade one of the tasks that I think is most important, or should I continue firmly respect the status of the Critical Now domain.

    • Michael Linenberger says:

      Raymond, good question. Normally I’d say no, stick with the definition. But if you really never have any true Critical Now items, I’d feel free to loosen that up a bit and list “just really important” items up there, still limiting it to 5 or fewer. But as soon as you start to get true Crit-Now items again, stop doing that, because one day you’ll drop something critical since you’ll be in the habit of assuming that whole section can be delayed.
      Michael

  20. Angel Sanchez says:

    I’d like to set a task every Monday. However, I don’t want to see that task in my task list until the next Monday. When I click done, I want that to disappear and not appear again until the next Monday. Is this possible?

    • Michael Linenberger says:

      Angel. If you have installed the MYN settings (chapter 3 of our Outlook book), then just make sure you set the start date to next monday, and then set the recurrance setting. If you do that, you should get what you want. Michael

  21. Andrew says:

    Hi Michael,

    I need to have reoccurring tasks to remind me every 6 months, 3 months, 1 months, 2 weeks before a deadline is due. Is there anyway to create just one task for one deadline even though the intervals between the reminders/tasks are different? Please let me know. Thanks!

    Also, can you only have one reminder/alert per task? For example, if you needed a pop up reminder about the task every month. I played around with the tasks but it only allows you to enter one date at the time of creation of a task. Thanks in advance.

    • Michael Linenberger says:

      Andrew,
      No way that I know to have varying reminders or multiple reminders per task like that. Would need multiple tasks for both questions. Sorry.
      Michael

  22. Patricia says:

    Just started the One Minute to do ebook. I really like the concept. Last night I started adding tasks to Outlook 13 in the To Do bar. Just a quick entry- not opening a new task. Today they are all red/overdue. Is there a way to default my due date setting to “none”? It looks like the default due date in the Task module is already “none”. But can’t figure out how to change it for the To Do Bar.

  23. Joy says:

    THANK YOU for a great system. And so far, any question I’ve had I have found the answer either in your book or online. I am finally beginning to master my constant email and long to-do list. SO SO helpful. Thank you.

  24. Shannon says:

    If I set a recurring appt. example: 3rd of every month I need to mail something from work. February 3rd is a Tuesday, but May 3rd falls on a Sunday. I need to be reminded to send the mail out on the previous “workday” which would be the Friday prior. Is there a preset for this. Does this make sense?

    Can I set a task/appt to be done on the 3rd of every month but only Monday – Friday and not on holidays.

    • Michael Linenberger says:

      Shannon: You’ll need to either pick a recurring date (a number) or pick a recurring day of week (M, T, W, T, F). Can’t pick both. One workaround is to set the recurring date 2 days ahead of true deadline, then adjust. Michael

  25. Kristina says:

    My former supervisor assigned her team a weekly task.

    She is gone, we want to remove it from our tasking. The company has inactivated her email account but the tasks remain.

    When marked complete just to get them off our task lists we get a bounce back because her email is inactive.

    How can we get those tasks off our Task list??

    It drive me crazy personally to see something from a difficult supervisor who tried to micro managed everything – even when I had completed this task weekly for 6 years before she was my boss – I don’t need reminders!

    • Michael Linenberger says:

      Kristina, I am not sure, but I think if you just go in and find that task in your own task list and delete it, that will clear it up; you may have to search a bit to find it. Again, not sure though. Michael

  26. Mathew says:

    Hi Michael, I have assigned a outlook recurrence task to my co worker and after my co worker updated the task it not updating my outlook task. I am using outlook office 2013

    • Michael Linenberger says:

      Mathew, sorry, not sure what’s going on there. We don’t use or document the task assignment feature in Outlook, so don’t have much knowledge of it. Sorry! Michael

  27. Stephanie says:

    I would like to set a reoccurring task for the first and third Thursday of each month. The only way I can figure out is to create two tasks (one for the first Thursday and one for the third). Is there another way to do it?

    • Michael Linenberger says:

      Stephani, what you are doing is the only way I know to do that. The recur dialog box is just not flexible enough to do that with only one task.

  28. israel mayengo says:

    I need to set tasks to recur monthly from the 1st to the 15th of every month.
    Your advise please..

  29. neel says:

    Hi,

    I want to create a task\to-do item as following:
    – It should be one hour each day (the regenerate task option you mentioned I believe)
    – I should be able to start the task at any time during the day – say on Monday I can work on on it at 10 am while on Thursday I can work on it on at 4 pm
    – At the end of that hour, something should happen – play a song for example 🙂

    Is it possible? Or does it need different outlook item (meeting request or appointment or something like that)?

    -Neel.

    • Michael Linenberger says:

      Neel, recurring tasks are not time of day specific normally (unless you set a reminder) so it will pop into your list in the morning and stay there all day in your list till you mark it complete.
      But your request for something to happen (play a song) is not possible. The only option is to set a reminder that will popup at a specific time. And that will be the same time for each day. So if you want a different time on certain days, then you’d need a different task for each day that has a different time. Michael

  30. Shameer says:

    Dear Michael,

    I want to schedule a meeting with all department staff on Last Thursday of every month, but I need to remind them about this meeting on Last Monday of every month.

    How to set this task.

    Appreciate…

  31. Michael Linenberger says:

    Shameer. For the task to remind people, in the recurrence window, choose Monthly, and choose the second choice on the right, picking “last” and “Monday”. The calendar recurrence window has similar controls, for the actual recurring meeting.

  32. shyamal says:

    Dear Michael

    I have set my calendar with default weekly off day as Wednesday. I have daily recurring tasks set. However it is getting reflected on Wednesday also, since I have already set Wednesday as weekly offday on my default calendar why the Recurring task is showing on Wednesdays??

    Thanks

    Shyamal

    • Michael Linenberger says:

      Shymal, I think it is because the Calendar module and the Tasks module are two separate things and Tasks does not pay attention to calendar settings. That is my guess. Michael

  33. Sarah says:

    Michael,

    I have a task that I need to set up and I need it to recur every odd date. Do you know the best way to do this? I tried doing a daily recurrence pattern for every 2 days but I didn’t take into account months that have 31 days. Once May was over, it messed up my recurring task and made it on even days instead.

    • Michael Linenberger says:

      Don’t know how to do that. Probably easiest to just recreate it at the start of each month. Michael

  34. Kenneth Ravn says:

    Hi.

    Just want to give this article a thumbs up, this was very helpful.

    Thank you very much.

    Kind regards, Kenneth

  35. Jim Harris says:

    Hi!
    Question on changing the text in the body of a reoccurring task and having it reflect on all subsequent tasks. Is that possible?

    i.e. I have a reoccurring task to send a client info monthly, in the body of the task I want to indicate the date I sent it (i.e. “2/15/17 – Sent Judy January 2017 Statement”) so that I have a running log in the task itself. I also keep the clients email in the task but if an email changes I need to edit it and have it appear correctly in all subsequent tasks. This has not been working so far, any edits apply only to the specific (i.e. current) task but not the reoccurring tasks that come up in the future.

    Is that possible?

    Thanks!
    Jim

  36. Bhwan Desai says:

    Like and Excel & Word.
    Is there any mechanism in Outlook to record macro to automate repetitive (Annoying) tasks for day to day work
    Thanks in advance..

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  38. Lanie says:

    Hey, Michael, thanks for this information-rich article.

    I am glad you are able to do something about your recurring tasks and improve productivity on your end using Outlook.

    Have you tried using other tools and automating your tasks via Zapier like from this article: https://www.process.st/recurring-tasks/ ?

    We are Zapier and Process Street heavy users when it comes managing our recurring tasks and keeping track of it.

  39. Julie Flynt says:

    Good Day,

    Why do Tasks that set to NO END DATE stop recurring?

  40. Mak says:

    The recurrence feature does not work for more than 6 months, unfortunately that’s the case with me.
    If I set birthday reminders of my colleagues, I have to set a new reminder every year, despite putting it as recurrence reminder every year in Tasks.

  41. AccountantGuy says:

    I have afew hundred tasks with various start & due dates in outlook. Is it possible to somehow bulk-apply the recurring feature to multiple task at once?

  42. Timothy D. Lee says:

    Using Outlook 365, I can edit the recurring Start Date for tasks. This is useful for those recurring tasks that pile up during vacation, etc. I heard this was an issue in previous versions of Outlook, but I have not had any issues editing task recurrence patterns with Outlook 365.

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