How to use Microsoft To Do
How to use Microsoft To Do
In this step-by-step tutorial, learn how to keep track of your tasks using Microsoft To Do. Microsoft To Do is a free task tracking app that you can access via http://todo.microsoft.com or via http://www.Office.com.
0:00 Introduction
1:00 How to get Microsoft To Do
3:08 Create first task
3:50 Create a list of tasks
4:30 Edit list Name
4:48 Set a theme for your list
5:15 Add tasks to list
7:00 Edit task attributes like importance, due date, etc.
7:42 Add sub-steps
8:45 How My Day works
10:05 Set reminders
10:20 Add a due date
11:00 Repeat / recurring tasks
11:15 Category colors
11:30 Attach an item \u0026 add note
11:50 Move and Copy tasks
12:35 Prioritizing and sorting tasks
13:25 Grouping lists
14:20 Share lists with others and assign tasks
17:57 Completed tasks
18:40 Search
19:20 Create tasks from email
20:20 Advanced settings
21:07 Wrap up
Learn how to track tasks across a team using Microsoft Planner: • How to use Microsoft Planner
As full-disclosure, I work at Microsoft as a full-time employee.
Content
0.16 -> Hi everyone! My name is Kevin. Today I want
to show you how you can both get and also use
7.04 -> Microsoft To Do. What is Microsoft To Do?
It's a task tracking app that's very powerful
13.92 -> but also very easy to use. As full disclosure
before we jump into this, I work at Microsoft
19.84 -> as a full-time employee and on that topic of
being an employee at Microsoft, I attribute
25.84 -> a lot of my success at Microsoft to using a
task list. Now I know that sounds kind of silly
30.96 -> but anytime I go to a meeting, anytime I talk to
a colleague in the hallway, anytime I get an email
36.64 -> and there's some type of follow-up for me to work
on, I add it to my task list. And so, what this
41.28 -> allows me to do, it helps me keep on top of any
of the work that I need to get done and it really
46.16 -> makes sure that I'm productive and efficient
with my time. And today I want to show you how
51.28 -> To Do can also help you stay on top of your life
and be more productive and efficient. All right,
56.72 -> well why don't we jump on the PC, and I'll show
you how to take advantage of it. To start off,
61.52 -> I want to show you how you can get Microsoft To Do
and there are a few different ways you can get it.
67.36 -> The first one and probably the most direct path
is you simply navigate to todo.microsoft.com
74.48 -> and that'll drop you on the Microsoft To Do
homepage and then you look at the primary action
80.4 -> here is get started. You simply click on there
and then you can get started with Microsoft To Do.
85.76 -> Another way that you can also get Microsoft
To Do is navigate to the website office.com
91.6 -> and then click on sign in. Either path that
you take, you're going to need to enter your
96.96 -> Microsoft account. If you already have one,
you could go ahead and just type it in here.
101.68 -> If you don't have a Microsoft account, don't
worry, you can still get to Microsoft To Do. This
107.04 -> text here says no account. Well don't worry, click
here to create one. It's entirely free to create a
112.88 -> Microsoft account. It won't cost you anything at
all. Now I've already gone ahead and logged in,
118.48 -> so I'm going to go ahead and open it up. Now if
you go directly to todo.microsoft.com and log in,
125.6 -> it'll drop you on the main To Do interface and
we'll get to this in just a moment. If you go
131.28 -> through office.com and log in, you'll land on
the main office.com website and right here what
137.84 -> you can do is to go to Microsoft To Do, you could
click here. So why would you go through this path
142.32 -> first just todo.microsoft.com? Well on office.com,
not only do you get Microsoft To Do as a very,
148.8 -> very awesome task tracking app, you also get
all these other productivity tools like Outlook,
154.64 -> you get free cloud storage with OneDrive, you get
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and the list goes
159.92 -> on. So you get lots of great productivity tools
included alongside To Do. Today's topic is To Do,
167.12 -> so we're going to ignore all these other ones
for now and we're going to simply jump directly
170.96 -> into Microsoft To Do and here I am in the main
interface and what we can do is why don't we
178.32 -> go ahead and simply create a task and what I'm
going to do is over here on the left hand side,
183.2 -> I'm going to click on this one that says tasks.
We'll go through what these other options are
187.6 -> in a moment, but what I want to do is let's
go ahead and just get our first task in here.
192.16 -> So, what I'm going to do is let's, why don't
we create our first task and maybe this one is
196.24 -> going to be Welcome to Microsoft To Do. That'll be
our first task and when you enter a task in here,
201.2 -> simply click on enter and here we have our first
task on the task list. One of the things that I
206.56 -> can do is as soon as you complete a task,
there's this round circle right here. I'm
211.36 -> going to go ahead and click on this and I get
a nice little bell that congratulates me that I
216.24 -> finished my first task. So congratulations, we've
entered To Do and we've already finished our first
221.52 -> task. It's actually pretty easy and fun adding
tasks and completing tasks. Now what I want to
226.64 -> do is this is just a generic list that you could
throw tasks in, but what I want to do is I want
231.68 -> to actually create a list of tasks. Now the way
to think of a list is this is a group of tasks.
238.24 -> So maybe let's say you have a grocery
shopping list. You could put them in a list
242.56 -> or maybe in my case, maybe if you, let's say you
want to start a YouTube channel, maybe I'll have
246.64 -> a list around starting a YouTube channel.
So whatever kind of a general topic is that
251.28 -> you'll have a lot of tasks relate to, you could
create a list around those. So, in this case,
256.4 -> what I'm going to do is I'm going to start a
YouTube channel and I'm going to create a list
259.92 -> around that. So, I'll go ahead and enter that. And
here you see, I have a list now and let's say that
266.24 -> actually I meant to say start an amazing YouTube
channel. We're not just going for the kind of the
270.4 -> plain and simple. We want to make this amazing. If
you want to rename your channel or your list, what
275.04 -> you could do is simply click on the name up here
and then I could go ahead and edit it. All right,
279.84 -> that's more like it. This'll, this'll really
inspire us as we're creating a YouTube channel.
284.64 -> And what I can do then is on the right of a
text, I see the ellipses here or the triple dot,
289.84 -> and I'll click on that and some things that
I could do for lists, I could set a theme. So
294.08 -> right now it's in kind of a cool blue. Why
don't I go with a calming green instead? And
298.48 -> so I'm going to go ahead and set this theme for
my list. So there I go. I have my list in place.
305.28 -> I've, I've retitled the name and now what I want
to do is I want to add some tasks under this list.
311.36 -> And so, one of the things is when you're starting
a YouTube channel, well, you don't want to just
315.92 -> start a channel and not know what it's going to
be about. So maybe my first task is going to be,
320.16 -> what is the channel about? We got to figure out
what's the purpose of this. A fun story for my
325.04 -> YouTube channel. I actually started with travel
videos eventually, and I finally pivoted my way
330 -> over to tech and how to videos. Part of the reason
why is at Microsoft, I work on office.com. I read
335.84 -> a lot of customer feedback and there's a lot of
computer questions, a lot of kind of assistance
342.32 -> that people need. And so I said, Hey, maybe I
can make videos that help make computers and
346.4 -> different Microsoft tools easier to use. And
so that's part of the reason I landed on this
350.72 -> channel type. Anyway, let's go ahead and add
some other items. So not only do you have to
355.28 -> decide what the channel is about, but you know,
if you're going to create a YouTube channel, you
358.64 -> also probably need some nice lighting. Hopefully
you like my lighting that you see in my video.
364.08 -> In this case, I'm doing the screen recording
video. So I need some screen recording software.
368.56 -> I probably also need some editing
software once I record all my footage
373.04 -> and let me throw in a camera because you probably
all want to see my beautiful face. I need a camera
377.44 -> to capture it. Just kidding there. And then I'm
also going to throw in a microphone as well. This
383.28 -> way you could hear me better. Now, one of the
things, if you ever are considering setting up
387.36 -> a YouTube channel or doing any type of recording,
a good microphone makes a massive difference.
393.2 -> If you use a built-in microphone as part of a
webcam or just a built-in microphone on a laptop,
398 -> it's not going to sound that good. So very
critical for setting up a YouTube channel.
402.24 -> So here I have all of my tasks on my list. And one
of the things that I want to do is let me actually
408.96 -> click into one of these tasks to show you what
you can do. Right now, I just have kind of a basic
413.36 -> task list here, but I could do a lot more with
these different tasks. And this is going to show
418.16 -> you some of the power of Microsoft To Do. So let's
click on what is the channel about. When I click
424.4 -> on this task, what you'll see is I have this pane
appear on the right-hand side. And what I can do
430.16 -> now is I can click on this star and I can tag this
or mark it as important. So I could click there.
436.24 -> What I can also do is I could click on the
star over here to mark it as important or to
440.64 -> deselect it as being important. One thing you'll
see that happened is as soon as I clicked on the
444.96 -> star, it moved it to the top of my list. So To
Do is being smart about what my prioritized tasks
450.72 -> are. If I mark it important, well, it's probably
a higher priority. And to be fair, before I get a
455.12 -> microphone, a camera, editing software, I should
probably know what my channel is about. So it
459.12 -> kind of makes sense to move this one to the top.
Within this pane, what I could do is I could add
464.32 -> sub steps. So you could have a higher level task
and maybe that task has additional steps that you
470.32 -> need to get done. So to figure out what my channel
is about, well, maybe as a first step, I want to
475.44 -> go through and actually brainstorm ideas. And
so maybe my goal is let's brainstorm at least
479.6 -> 20 ideas first. And then maybe as a next step,
once I've brainstormed my 20 ideas, let me narrow
484.96 -> that down to what I think are the top three.
And once I have my top three, maybe I could
489.92 -> pull in some friends and family, and then I could
have them vote on what their favorite one is,
494.24 -> and then I can narrow it down to my top one. And
that'll help me land on what my channel topic is.
500.4 -> Now, as I go down here, when I mark this one
as important, what's interesting is you'll see
505.52 -> over here on the left-hand side, as soon as I mark
something as important, now it also includes it on
511.04 -> my important list. So I'll go ahead and click on
here. And here you see what is the channel about
516.4 -> has been filtered or shown on this important view.
So I'm going to go back to my list. Let's click
521.92 -> back into this task. One of the things I can also
do within this pane, I could add it to my day. So
527.6 -> let me go ahead and add this to my day. And here
too, just like when I set a task to important,
532.96 -> you also see that it added a task to my day. And
so if I click on this, now I see the task here.
538.64 -> Now what's really interesting about the my day
view is at the end of the day, any task that's
545.2 -> in this view drops off the my day view. So every
day you have to define what your my day tasks are.
552.88 -> And one of the really nice things about this is
when people have done research on task lists and
558.56 -> tracking to-dos, one of the challenges is people
are very ambitious about adding tasks and your
563.68 -> task list grows and grows and grows. And maybe
you add another task here and another task there.
568.24 -> And one of the challenges is overtime it becomes
somewhat overwhelming because you have so many
573.04 -> tasks on your task list. My day aims to
address this where at the end of the day,
577.84 -> they simply drop off and you have a clear list.
And then tomorrow you could go through and you
582.16 -> could figure out what goes on my day view. And
what's nice is just like I went into this list and
587.52 -> I clicked on this task and I added it to my day,
you could go into any task and add it to my day.
593.12 -> And in fact, what I could even do is I could
even click on this task and just drag it,
597.2 -> drag and drop it over in my day as one way of
adding it there. So this way every day you get, in
602.72 -> a sense, a clean slate. Some of the other things
that I could do when I'm clicked into this task,
607.04 -> I could also indicate when I want a reminder. So
I could say, hey, remind me about this tomorrow,
612.16 -> maybe at 9 a.m. on Tuesday. I could add a due
date. So if I really want to force myself to,
617.36 -> you know, make sure that I'm really getting
this item done, maybe I'll say, hey,
620.8 -> let's say maybe tomorrow I should I should land
on what my channel is about. And here, too,
625.44 -> as I select a date here, you'll also see that it
added it within this view over here in plans. And
631.12 -> here I see the due date appearing on here. So as
I go through each one of these tasks, whether it's
636.88 -> marking it as important, whether it's adding it to
my day, whether it's setting a due date on this,
641.36 -> you'll notice in each one of these cases, it's
adding it to one of these categories. The way to
645.92 -> think of this is as I set different settings on
this side, in a sense, it's tagging an item and
651.76 -> then these are the different filtered views for
those different tags that I assign to an item.
657.6 -> Some of the other things that I could do on
here is I could repeat tasks. So let's say,
661.84 -> I don't know, maybe you have an item household
chores and one of them is take out the trash
665.6 -> and you do that weekly. You could set it to recur
or repeat. And so that way you'll get a reminder
670.16 -> every single week and you have to check it off.
As I go down, too, you can also choose a category.
675.04 -> You have different colors that you could assign
to a task. And these different colors can mean
679.28 -> different things. Maybe red is urgent. Maybe green
is a family item. However you want to organize,
684.32 -> you could use these categories how you see fit.
I can also attach an item if I want to do this.
689.28 -> This opens up the Windows file picker or whatever
operating system you're on. It pulls up the file
695.04 -> picker. And then I could also add in a note
here. So, I could add some additional context.
700.56 -> Now, if I go back to the main task view here, what
I can also do is I can right click on an item and
706.32 -> this brings up a context menu here. And within
here, you'll notice that many of these different
711.52 -> controls that I have are very similar to the pane
on the right. Here I could add to the my day. I
716.32 -> could set importance. I could set the due date.
But I do have some additional controls down here
721.28 -> that I don't get in the right-hand pane. What I
could do is I could create a new list from this
726.16 -> task. So, let's say I started adding things and
maybe it doesn't really fit in start an amazing
730.56 -> YouTube channel. So, I could just create a new
list. I could also move tasks around to different
734.88 -> lists or I could copy the task to a different
list. So lots of task management controls when
740.08 -> you right click on a task. Now that I've added
my tasks in here and I've added a few different
745.36 -> filters to the item, what I can do now is, well,
how do I prioritize my tasks that I see in this
750.72 -> view? Well, a really easy way to prioritize my
tasks is I could simply click on an item and I
755.84 -> could drag it in my list. So I could pull
this down and maybe I pull the light up.
760.88 -> And so I can move things around the list as I see
fit. What I can also do is another way to organize
766.88 -> this list. Not only can I drag and drop, but what
I can do is I could go up to this sort dropdown
772 -> and here I could sort by importance. So there are
my most important items will show up at the top.
776.88 -> I could sort by the due date. I could sort
by any tasks that have been added to my day,
781.04 -> sort alphabetically and also by the creation date.
So I have lots of different ways to sort. And
786.64 -> then here you can adjust the order in the, in the
order that it sorts these items. So I could have
791.6 -> importance at the top or importance at the bottom.
And if I want to get rid of the different sort,
797.04 -> I could go ahead and click on this X
and that'll remove the sorting again.
801.2 -> This list here, this is all focused on equipment,
getting my channel started, but let's say that I
806.56 -> want a different list to keep track of all of my
video ideas. What I'm going to do is I'm going to
810.96 -> add another list now, and this one is going to be
called video ideas. And I'm going to type in the
815.68 -> list name and I'm going to hit enter. So now I
have two different lists. One of the nice things
820.24 -> that Microsoft To Do allows you to do is you can
also group together lists. So here I'm going to
824.8 -> create a group and maybe I'm going to call this
simply YouTube. So all of my YouTube content,
830.32 -> I want to put all of my YouTube related lists
within this group. And so what I could do is
834.56 -> I could pull the video ideas list into this group
and I could also pull the original list into here
840.16 -> as well that we just looked at. And so now I have
a group with separate lists under that group. And
845.36 -> so this is a nice way just to organize all the
different lists you have. So maybe, you know, in
850.32 -> this case I might have my YouTube group and then
maybe I have a personal group where I have things
854.24 -> like grocery shopping or household chores. So you
could organize it in whatever way you'd like to.
860.88 -> Now that I have my list created, one of the very
powerful features of Microsoft To Do is that you
866.8 -> can share lists with others. So with my one list
here, start an amazing YouTube channel. Let's say
873.12 -> that I wanted to collaborate on this with someone
else. What I could do is I could click on the list
878.32 -> and I could right click on it and then I could
share the list from here. What I can also do is
883.36 -> up here in the top right hand corner, I also
have the option to share the list from here.
888.8 -> I'll go ahead and let's click on this. And what
I can do is I could create an invitation link.
894.24 -> So with this invitation link, anyone will be able
to join and then also edit this list. Now imagine
900.64 -> that you and your wife or you and your husband,
let's say that you want to have a shared list,
904.88 -> maybe household chores, and you could assign
a bunch of tasks to your husband. I kid you
909.76 -> not. This is what my wife does to me. And so what
you could do is let's create an invitation link.
915.12 -> And what I could do then is I could invite someone
via email or I could simply copy this link and I
920.24 -> could message it to someone. I could use WhatsApp
or I could use text message and I could send this
924.48 -> link to someone and then they can work with me
on this list. So, I'm going to go ahead. Let's
930.24 -> let me copy the link here and I can now
send that to someone from my clipboard. So,
934.48 -> this is now a shared list and you'll see this icon
appears here indicating that it is a shared list.
942.64 -> One of the things I could do now is if I click on
one of the tasks, let's say with the microphone,
947.36 -> I don't really know what microphone to
get. If I click on the task microphone,
952 -> now I'll see all the same details that we saw
before, but I see an additional category now
957.52 -> called assign to. If I click on assign to,
what I could do is anyone who has gotten access
964 -> to this task list, I could assign the task to
them. In this case, I haven't invited anyone
969.28 -> else yet or no one else has joined, but
I could go ahead and assign it to myself
973.2 -> and you'll see that my initials show up now
indicating that this is my task. If I had
978.56 -> someone else invited to this task list, I would
see their initials show up to whatever tasks that
984 -> they own. So in a sense, not only can I track my
own tasks very easily, it also allows me to track
990.88 -> team type tasks. Now what I see is now that
I've assigned a task to myself, once again,
996 -> I'm going to go over to the left hand side
and I see this assigned to you category. If
1001.04 -> I click on that, I could see a list of all of the
different tasks across all of my different lists
1006.64 -> that are assigned to me. So another nice
way to tag tasks and then to filter those by
1013.04 -> different categories. Now I've shown you how to
create tasks within lists, how to create lists,
1018.56 -> and we've also looked at how different items
show up within these views, but I'm not just
1022.72 -> limited to items showing up in these views by
tagging it. What I can also do is I could simply
1028.72 -> type in an idea directly in here, so I could
click on add a task. I'm going to go ahead,
1033.6 -> type in the task, hit enter, and now
this shows up in my important view,
1037.76 -> but it doesn't show up on any of the lists. And
let's say I typed it in, I know this is important,
1042.08 -> so I typed it in here. What I could do is
I'm going to right click on this and now I
1045.68 -> can move the task and I'll put it in my video
ideas list. So how do you use Microsoft To Do?
1050.56 -> Let me throw that in as a video idea. So I could
also go ahead and create a task and say my day
1056.16 -> important or planned. I could create a task here
first, and then I could assign it to a list. So
1061.68 -> you could either create a task and a list first,
or you could create the task first and then assign
1066.32 -> it to a list, or heck, you don't even have to
assign it to a list. However you want to work,
1070.96 -> To Do has a lot of flexibility. Now I'm going
to jump into my start an amazing YouTube channel
1076.24 -> list here. And one of the things I want to do
is I've been very productive since we started
1081.36 -> chatting. I like to multitask. So while I've been
giving you this tutorial of To Do, I've also been
1087.84 -> getting some things done. I did some research
around microphones. I ordered a microphone.
1091.76 -> I did some research on cameras and I bought a
camera. So let me check that off once again.
1096.08 -> There's that satisfying bell that you hear that
lets you know that you completed some tasks and
1101.92 -> they now show up in a completed view. I could also
go ahead and minimize that list, or I could expand
1106.8 -> the list so I could decide whether I want to see
everything here or only things that still need to
1112.32 -> be done. Now let's say I go back to my day view
and you know, I'm here and you know, maybe I have
1117.76 -> a lot of tasks on my list and you know, I remember
that I had one around getting a light. So let me
1123.2 -> go ahead and here I can click on search and let
me type in light and their search is very powerful
1128.96 -> where it simply looks across all of your different
tasks. And here at surfaces, this task right here,
1134 -> and then I can jump into that task very quickly
using search. Aside from me just going ahead
1139.52 -> and adding tasks in here and searching for tasks
that I created, especially at my job at Microsoft,
1145.36 -> one of the biggest sources of tasks for me is
email. You get an email, someone asks you to do
1150.96 -> something, you know, you could read the email
and then just manually type in a task into
1155.76 -> To Do, or what you could do is I can click
into Outlook. So, I have my Outlook inbox open
1161.12 -> and here's an email I got from the Windows Insider
Program. So maybe I want to go ahead and read this
1165.44 -> email. And so that's a follow up for me where I
want to read on, read about this. So when I hover
1169.76 -> over the message in Outlook, what you'll see here
is I have these different icons. I could delete,
1174.72 -> I can mark as read or here I could flag this
message. And if I go back to Microsoft To Do now,
1180.96 -> one of the things that you'll see is that flagged
message will show up in my flagged email category.
1187.04 -> Here you see the email message shows up in here.
So, I tagged it in Outlook and now it's showing up
1192.16 -> on my list. So this is another place that I could
keep track of what I need to get done. So I have
1197.36 -> the ability both to create my own tasks and also
to flag emails as tasks and emails tend to be one
1203.12 -> of the biggest sources of tasks that you need
to get done and here too, even with this task,
1208.72 -> what I could do is I could right click on it and I
could add it to my day if this is something that I
1212.4 -> want to follow up on today. Now we've gone through
most of the core functionality in Microsoft To Do,
1218.72 -> but I want to finish off with one additional thing
and I'm going to go over here up on the top right
1223.68 -> hand up here on the, uh, the header. And I'm going
to click on the settings gear and this opens up a
1228.96 -> pane with a whole bunch of different settings. And
now there are two interesting settings that I want
1233.68 -> to call out. So you have all sorts of things
where you could set whether it plays a sound,
1238.08 -> whether you have to confirm before deleting.
But the interesting ones is you could turn on
1242.72 -> additional views. Here if I turn on all, I also
get an all list over here that shows me all of
1248.56 -> my tasks across all of my categories. And I also
have the ability to view a completed list. So here
1254.64 -> this adds an additional view here. So, let's say
you're at work and maybe your boss is asking you,
1259.36 -> Hey, what have you done recently? Turn on that
completed view and you can get a quick view of
1262.72 -> everything you've accomplished and gotten done.
All right. Well, that was a quick tutorial of how
1268.32 -> you can use Microsoft To Do, to be more efficient
and productive. If you found this video helpful
1274.56 -> and you think you are now a task master, give
this video a thumbs up. If you want to see more
1280.48 -> videos like this in the future, hit that subscribe
button. That way you'll get a notification anytime
1285.2 -> new content like this comes out. And lastly, if
you want to see me cover any other topics in the
1289.84 -> future, feel free to leave a comment down below. I
read them all and I'll add it to my list of videos
1294.8 -> to create. You know, this is actually one of my
biggest sources of video ideas. I've gotten lots
1299.44 -> of suggestions before, and then I've created
videos based on those suggestions. All right.
1303.68 -> Well, that's all I had for you today. I hope you
enjoyed, and I hope to see you next time. Bye.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCc56WuQMjk