Decoding “To Do”

In previous posts, (one here, and another here), I decoded the various names of Outlook to get past growing confusion around recent Outlook releases. Similarly, in the free video below, this time I tackle the term “To Do” and what that name can mean as it integrates into more and more Microsoft products. 

Decoding “To Do” is needed because, with the increasing spread of Microsoft To Do over the widening Microsoft ecosystem, we now have the potential for serious confusion. That’s because the old Outlook Tasks Module is also still in widespread use. So watch the video below and get ahead of this before it starts to cause issues with your tasks management. In the video, I show four examples where the name To Do can lead you astray.

Text From Video

Below is the rest of the text from that video in case you’d rather read than watch.

#1 Microsoft To Do. The main concern is if you are using the new Microsoft To Do and trying to mix it with old Outlook tasks. Microsoft To Do is the new Tasks module that Microsoft started rolling out in 2017, and that now dominates Microsoft’s suite of productivity products. These days, if Microsoft mentions “To Do,” they are either referring to this module, or a task item inside it. The module replaces the old Outlook Tasks module for all new products. 

However, Microsoft still supports tasks in the old, classic version of Outlook, too, and often refers to tasks there as To Dos, also. To mitigate issues, Microsoft has set up automatic instant sync between the two task systems for a given Microsoft account, so tasks from each mostly match, which is great. But they are not fully interchangeable.

The main example of resulting issues is this: In the old system, there is a three-level field called Priority, with choices High, Normal, and Low. But in the new To Do system, there is no Priority field. The closest equivalent to Priority is the Importance field, with two levels: Important and none. Microsoft tries to sync these two, and mostly succeeds with high priority tasks, which map to “important” in the new To Do system. But for normal and low priority tasks in the old outlook, Microsoft maps all those to an importance of none. And that causes all sorts of issues. So, be very careful when switching between the two systems. The best solution is to fully cutover to the new one, and leave the old one behind. But if you must use both, then be sure you understand which system, old or new, you are working with when dealing with “To Dos” in Microsoft products these days. Microsoft almost always means the new system; but there are exceptions, like in the next case.

#2 To-Do Bar. In the old Outlook, there is a special tool called the To-Do Bar, and it’s the To-Do Bar that some of us still think of when we think of the word “To-Do.” After all, look at the name!
However these days, that can be enormously confusing because the To-Do Bar’s tasks can act is differently from tasks in the new Microsoft To Do. the old To-Do Bar links only with the OLD Tasks module. 
I really like the To-Do bar, and I wrote entire books about using the To-Do Bar in Outlook. It was the primary tool I recommended my readers used to manage Tasks in the old Outlook. It still is if you want to keep using old Tasks. But don’t get it confused with Microsoft To Do, nor with the To Dos found in Microsoft’s mobile task apps, which I discuss next.

#3 Mobile Task Apps. One nice thing about the 2017 release of Microsoft To Do was that Microsoft also released iPhone and Android apps for their tasks. This is the first time Microsoft has released mobile tasks apps, and it’s great to have them. However you must be aware that the to do’s shown in the mobile apps are from the new Microsoft To Do app, not from the old Outlook Tasks app. So, if you are an old Outlook Tasks app user, note that many fields you might be expecting to see will be absent or incorrect. You might be able to work around that due to the sync, but not with MYN. Really, the best solution is to finally let go of the old Outlook tasks module, and start using only the To Do modules that Microsoft now assumes you will use.

#4 The To Do. view The To Do view is a view within the new Outlook’s My Day pane. It is useful, but it can be a bit confusing, too. It is Microsoft’s replacement for the old To-Do Bar I discussed earlier, and one might think the To-Do _Bar_ and To Do _view_ show the same things, right? No. The To-Do Bar shows tasks from the old Tasks Module and the To Do view shows tasks from the new Microsoft To Do app. So, like for mobile apps, if you want to use the new Outlook and you want to view tasks there, the best solution would be to finally let go of the old Outlook tasks module, and start using only the To Do modules Microsoft to manage tasks. Don’t forget my new video course teaches how to do that. Go to this link to learn more [bit.ly/myn-to-do](bit.ly/myn-to-do)