{"id":2106,"date":"2013-08-09T14:50:09","date_gmt":"2013-08-09T21:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oneminutetodolist.com\/blog\/?p=2106"},"modified":"2013-08-10T13:49:38","modified_gmt":"2013-08-10T20:49:38","slug":"hierarchical-goal-project-and-tasks-folders-in-outlook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/hierarchical-goal-project-and-tasks-folders-in-outlook\/","title":{"rendered":"Hierarchical Goal, Project, and Tasks Folders in Outlook"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aug 9, 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article was extracted from my Outlook book <\/em>Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook (3rd Edition). I am placing it here because we are editing down the size of that book as we create its fourth edition and so are removing it in that new edition. Since this material is still useful, we wanted to make it available online.<\/em><\/p>\n

Are Hierarchies of Goals and Tasks Useful?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you start planning your goals, projects, and tasks, it won\u2019t take you long to realize that there is a natural hierarchy that goes something like this: From our goals we create projects and from our projects we create tasks. So we should be able to trace many tasks back to a project and then to a goal. In fact, some people say that every task we list we should be able to trace back to a goal, and tasks that are not related to our goals should not even be in our task list.<\/p>\n

The logic in this is undeniable. However, the utility of doing much work on it is debatable. Every time I spend much time creating goal>project>task hierarchies I don\u2019t get much value out of it compared to the time it takes to create the hierarchies and maintain them. But that\u2019s just me, and a large and vocal group of task system users feels very strongly about using such hierarchies in task systems. So to that end, let me show you one way to do this in Windows Outlook that works relatively well.<\/p>\n

Creating Hierarchical Folders in Windows Outlook<\/strong><\/p>\n

Windows Outlook has a strong capability to create hierarchical folders. I am going to use that capability to create a goal>project>task hierarchy. In fact I can make these hierarchies as deep as I want. For example, I could add subgoals or subprojects in the middle of the hierarchy. One thing I cannot do is create a subtask. That\u2019s because the parent task above it will not show up in my To-Do Bar. But that\u2019s okay\u2014I just use various levels of projects to enable that, and only declare tasks at the bottom level.<\/p>\n

Here is an example that you can use as a guide for your own implementation. In it I use a deep hierarchy\u2014just to show you how deep this can go. I create a Goals tasks folder in my main data store (my Exchange Mailbox), and under that I create three goal entries as task subfolders. Under each of those folders I create task subfolders that I call projects, and under some of those, task subfolders I call subprojects. Finally, within the bottom folders I create actual tasks. Surprisingly, all of the actual tasks from all folders will show up in my To-Do Bar task list where I can track them. The reason this works is due to the Search Folder\u2013like nature of the To-Do Bar task list, where tasks are collected from all Tasks folders.<\/p>\n

How to Create This<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the the figure below you can see my Goals tasks folder halfway down the list, with three subfolders that are named after my three goals. I put G: in front of each to make that clear. I create the Goals folder simply by right-clicking the first folder group and choosing New Folder, and then creating a Tasks folder called Goals.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After that is created I right-click it, choose New Folder and create my first goal (G:Create insightful teachings) as an Outlook Tasks folder as well. Then I create two more goals as shown above.<\/p>\n

I right-click the goal G:Expand business (shown above) and enter projects (as Tasks folders with P: at the beginning) and subprojects (as Tasks folders with SP: at the beginning) and then actual tasks under the subprojects. The next figure also shows how this looks, with one subproject (SP:Delivery) selected and the tasks inside it shown at the right. Examine carefully the bottom half of the Folder List.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As I said, the tasks on the right side of Figure 12.7 are contained within the subproject folder SP:Delivery, because that is what is selected. These tasks will appear in the To-Do Bar (if the start date is on or before today). Notice I set the start date to 2\/2\/2222 for most tasks to keep them out of the To-Do Bar (that date is far in the future and easy to type, as discussed in Lesson 12 of the book). They are dependent tasks and not yet ready to be worked as Now Tasks.<\/p>\n

Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Outlook folder system and To-Do Bar offers quite a bit of flexibility for creating hierarchical relationships among tasks. I encourage you to experiment with this capability should you want this kind of approach to tasks.<\/p>\n

Michael Linenberger<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aug 9, 2013 This article was extracted from my Outlook book Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook (3rd Edition). I am placing it here because we are editing down the size of that book as we create its fourth edition … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2106"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2114,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions\/2114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}