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.

It’s January again, and the new year’s resolution season is upon us. So, let’s resolve to get tasks and email under control.

It’s good to tackle both tasks and email together since, in many businesses, up to 90% of new tasks arrive by email. Tackling tasks, if done right, will get email under control.

It Simply Takes 4 Steps to Move this Forward

1. Commitment: make a commitment to reach that control. Without that, the next 3 steps won’t happen.

2. Technology: make a small commitment in new technology—you might need a new task management app or email management tool. On a Mac I recommend the Things app for tasks; you can use any email system with Things. On a Windows PC, Microsoft Outlook is great. Todoist is a good app for both.

But an app is useless without the next point.

3. Methodology: this is key, you must understand that having the right task and email methodology in place is what makes this work. I am biased of course, but I’ve never found a methodology that works better than the MYN, 1MTD, and Outlook Ninja methodologies.

See this short video that explains how my methodologies are different, and which you should use.

4. A Little Training: the above steps can’t be achieved by simply loading a new app on your smartphone. Too many of us try that easy way out but fail. Rather, it takes at least a little training to put the methodology in place, and to learn how to apply that methodology to technology (we show which apps and software to use). Of course, that’s my specialty: self-study video training to do just that.

See my store page for a list of those video courses. They are easy to use and will get you going quickly.

Resolve to do this today!

I received this notification from Andrew Boswell, the UK developer of the Task Angel Online app that supports MYN so well. Recall I wrote about this app back in January. This looks like a nice update! See discussion below. Michael.

From Andrew Boswell
November 22, 2022

I am pleased to say a new version of TaskAngel is now available. This is a big update, version 2.0, aimed at making TaskAngel even easier to use. Just browse to app.taskangel.com as usual.

Here are the main changes.

You Don’t Need Another App
By Charles Olsen

I follow some of the message boards on Reddit, including the Subreddit for the Things app from Cultured Code. I recently saw a message from someone asking for recommendations for an alternative to Things.

They were using Things to keep track of the tasks they had to do, and tasks that they would like to do. They admitted that they were getting stressed because they had to keep reading through the whole Today list to pick out the tasks that had to be done.

I’ve been doing computer support for over 20 years, for both hardware and software. While most of the requests were about problems that needed to be solved, many were asking for recommendations for hardware or software. Like the question above, a lot of people have asked me to recommend software to solve their problems.

If you are struggling with some part of your work or personal life, you may think that finding the right tool will solve a problem. Now that we all carry powerful computers in our pockets, it might seem like all you need for a particular problem is to find the right app. Apple built an advertising campaign around that idea, and even has a trademark on their slogan, “There’s an app for that.”

[May 20, 2023 Update: See this link for new information on this topic before reading below:]

https://www.michaellinenberger.com/blog/microsoft-365-subscribers-if-using-myn-wait-before-updating-to-new-windows-outlook/

June 9, 2022:

Microsoft in May (2022) released a beta preview of their upcoming new Windows Desktop Outlook, and it contains good news for MYN users. Microsoft has apparently not abandoned the original Tasks module—it’s still in there!

That’s important because the original Tasks module is needed to use MYN in Outlook. So we now know that MYN users can continue implementing the MYN system in the newest version of Windows Desktop Outlook.

I’ve recently been collaborating with a software developer to help create a new tasks app, one that implements nearly all MYN principles in a simple way. The developer is an avid MYN user and was eager to do it.

An early release of that app is now available. It’s the new Online version of TaskAngel. Go to https://www.taskangel.com/online to get it (note it’s not in the iPhone App Store or Google Play but it still works on mobile devices as I discuss below).

Older versions of TaskAngel have been out a while, including Windows and smartphone app versions, but only TaskAngel Online is currently enabled for MYN—so be sure to select only that.

How the MYN-Enabled TaskAngel Online Looks

Here’s how TaskAngel Online looks. It presents a very clean list and it’s optimized well for MYN.

Here it is, the new year, and I bet you will soon list a bunch of goals and to-dos for 2022. Not a bad idea!

But this year, I encourage you to get realistic about how you set their priorities. There are right ways and wrong ways to prioritize to-dos. Do it wrong, and the list won’t get done—it will just be another bust on your new year’s resolutions.

Your success will be significantly higher if you use MYN and 1MTD principles to prioritize that list.