Michael Linenberger's Blog

In my MYN To Do Complete Video Course, I show several ways to convert emails into tasks. ln last week’s newsletter, I highlighted a new video about how to do that with non Microsoft emails. In this week’s newsletter, I talk about another video that I just added to the course (Video G-8), that teaches yet another useful method.

The Key: Choosing Different Title Text

In a new video I just posted to that course, video G-8, I show a trick that enables you to pre-fill the new task title with text other than the title of the original email. Rather, you pick the text from the body of the email, which can yield exactly the right title! And you don’t have to drag and drop the email, rather just click the To Do icon that appears above the selected text, and that creates the new task with that text prefilled in the title.

You must be using the new Outlook for this to work. And it must be a Microsoft email account. All the details are in that new video, which is free to all paid subscribers of the video course. To learn more about the MYN To Do Complete Video Course, go to this link.

In my MYN To Do Complete Video Course, I show several ways to convert emails into tasks. Almost all of them rely on the email arriving in a Microsoft account, either a subscription Microsoft 365 account or an Outlook.com account. But if you have a Gmail address mounted in your Outlook client, you cannot convert a mail in that account to a To Do task using the normal methods.

The Solution: Watch Video G-7

In a new video I just posted to that course, video G-7, I show a trick that makes it work. It’s easy to do, but does take a little thought. So watch that video for the complete solution. The video is free to all paid subscribers to the video course.

To learn more about that video course, go to this link.

Microsoft offers at least five distinct products all bearing the name Outlook, and that abundance of products with the same name can certainly lead to confusion. Following last week’s article on the recently released free Outlook for Windows, the responses I received underscored the need to teach a bit more about Outlook’s package names and underlying functionality.

In this article, I intend to concentrate on one very specific aspect of Outlook naming: the distinctions between new Outlook and classic Outlook. It’s important that you understand their differences if you want to fully understand the rapid transformations occurring within the Outlook product ecosystem right now. And at the end of the article, I’ll also clarify the functionality of free Outlook a bit more.

The Windows Desktop Outlook app has always been a paid product, and a relatively expensive one, too. But recent licensing changes now make it free for Windows 11 users. If that sounds interesting to you, read on.

Normally About $100

In my last blog article and newsletter, I talked about the new Office 2024 rollout that occurred on October 1, 2024. If you read that article, and looked at product pricing, then you saw that adding desktop Outlook costs around $100 for a non-subscription, perpetual version. For a subscription version, you’ll pay about $100 a year for the whole Office suite including Outlook. Sure, you can get a free equivalent of Outlook if you don’t mind using Outlook for the Web, but many Outlook users want only the desktop version, and that normally costs you.

New Free Desktop Outlook

Not anymore. Starting sometime in 2024, Windows Desktop Outlook became free for Windows 11 users. You might even have it on your computer now. Here is how to check. Open the Windows 11 Start menu and search for “Outlook,” there is a good chance you will see an icon named “Outlook (new).” It looks like this.

This is the new free one, and it was auto installed on your computer by Microsoft sometime in 2024, probably during a Windows OS update. You’ll see this even if you purchased no previous subscription or perpetual license for Outlook or Office. 

On October 1, 2024, Microsoft launched the new Office 2024 package, which includes Outlook 2024 making its debut. With this and other updated Outlook versions coming out simultaneously, now is a good time to clarify the key differences, and to better articulate which Outlook versions I write about in my various communications and video courses.

For example, in my recently released MYN To Do video course, I focus on a version of Outlook called the new Outlook, and I list reasons to consider it. Elsewhere, I write about a version essentially the same as Outlook 2024 called classic Outlook. And finally, I often refer to outlook.com, Outlook online, and more.

So, in case you are in the market for Outlook, let’s explore some of the key versions and determine which one might suit your needs.

After almost a year of searching for a backstop to replace the MYN Outlook teachings (that will soon be out of date), I’ve developed an MYN training that uses Microsoft To Do as the Tasks platform.

To learn about this new video course, go here: https://www.michaellinenberger.com/MYN-To-Do/to-do-video-course.html

Or watch this video about why you will probably want to take this course:

You are going to want this course since Microsoft will be fully removing Outlook Tasks from Outlook very soon, meaning my old MYN Outlook training will no longer work. This new course is its replacement. It teaches how to use Microsoft’s new task management module, To Do, to manage your tasks with all the power of MYN principles.

A few months ago I would have said this was not possible, that To Do was not powerful enough to implement MYN. But all that has changed because Microsoft has recently upgraded the To Do software in ways that make it perfect for MYN. I am super excited about this new capability, and find I like it even better than Outlook Tasks. I think you will too.

So, take this new video course that I have developed that shows you how.

Michael

Every professional I know gets far more tasks handed to them each day than they can possibly act on. So, here’s a tip that will help you be successful with managing an overwhelming list of tasks.

You Must Deprioritize Aggressively

If your task list is too big and poorly prioritized—if tens or even hundreds of items are critical—you’ll abandon the list and go back to acting on low-priority emails and projects, just because they are in front of you. And then you’ll get even further behind.

But if you deprioritize consistently, and promote only key tasks, it keeps your list fresh, relevant, and well-focused.

So, as a professional, you should use every tool you have to deprioritize your lower-value tasks—and do that deprioritizing aggressively. That way, at any given time, you are only presented with your most important tasks, and you don’t spin your wheels on low-priority actions.

Tools In 1MTD and MYN for Deprioritizing

And the good news is, that’s exactly what the 1MTD and MYN task systems are designed to help you do.

Here are a few of the tools built into 1MTD and MYN that help you deprioritize low-value tasks—these are tools that help you focus on only those tasks that will pay off for you.

This is a good time for me to update you regarding the article I wrote a few months ago—the one about how Microsoft appears to be sunsetting the Tasks module on Windows Desktop Outlook and how you should hold back on Outlook software updates. At the time I was uncertain if this was just a software release timing in issue or a true strategy change in Outlook.

But based on feedback from others, and on reports on various Microsoft news online sites, it looks like that unfortunate evolution has been confirmed. Microsoft, in its latest rollout of Microsoft 365 subscription copies of Windows Desktop Outlook, truly appears to be eliminating the old but powerful Tasks module.

Windows Desktop Outlook users in the UK and Australia are reporting a bug in an incremental update of their Outlook modules, and it it changes how the To-Do Bar shows tasks for MYN. Tasks dated today are not working right. But there is a fix.

The fix is this: You must edit the Start Date Today filter in the To Do Bar MYN configurations, and put quotation marks around the word “Today” in that filter. Simply adding those quotation marks will fix it. 

For full details on how to edit the filters in the MYN configured To-Do Bar, see Chapter/Lesson 3 of my Outlook book. Or study Video Lessons #8 and #9 in my Outlook video course, or Lessons #4.10 through #4.12 in the Super Outlook Ninja video course (the one that includes MYN).

If you are a Microsoft 365 subscriber, then be aware that major changes in Windows Desktop Outlook are arriving in an update rolling out soon to your Windows computer.

And if you are an MYN System user with tasks stored in Outlook, you should hold off accepting that update. That’s because there have been some significant issues reported to us from a few of our MYN users.