Hello Everybody, it's Matt.
Welcome to Collaboration Coach
and this time I'm going to show you the best ways to capture tasks if you're using Microsoft 365.
I'll also talk about the theory of why we should do it and why doing it quickly is essential
and I'll show you the easiest way to get tasks from different apps like Outlook and Teams.
First I want to talk about why it's so important to have a quick and easy way of capturing tasks.
I have some insights from one of my favourite books on productivity,
and that's 'Getting Things Done' by David Allen to explain this.
Allen talks about a task as an 'agreement to do something',
and he says everything you agree to do,
whether it's write a report, schedule a meeting or just go for a coffee - is a task.
Now, each of these tasks is incomplete or an 'open loop' until you've actually done them,
so, until you've written that report you have an open loop.
When the report is written, the loop can be closed and you can forget all about it.
You've probably seen this concept of closing loops to show progress before.
For example, Apple uses rings on its fitness app
and Duolingo uses loops to show what levels have been completed.
So as we go through our working day we create lots of these open loops
and if we don't capture them somehow, they must be tracked by our poor overloaded brains
and that just isn't sustainable.
We're quickly going to start forgetting those open loops
and those tasks won't get done.
So the best thing we can do is capture them as soon as we can.
Microsoft To Do is the perfect place to capture open loops.
To capture a task in the To Do app, go to the tasks list and then type what you need to do.
Make sure the title of your task is specific so you know what the next action will be.
If the task is tough you can break it down into easier steps here.
Now that the open loop is captured,
it won't be forgotten and can be reviewed or completed later.
You don't have to use the default task list either, you can create your own
and you can create new tasks in your list and move them from other lists.
To Do has an app for android, ios, Mac and Windows
and it's available in any browser
and all your tasks are in Microsoft 365 cloud
so they're always in sync no matter which device you happen to be using.
For example, I often use my phone to dictate my task because I type so slowly.
Plus I always have my phone on me
so I can open up To Do on my phone, go to the tasks list, press the dictate button and then start speaking:
"Hire a venue".
I find this the quickest and most convenient way of getting open loops out of my brain and into To Do.
If you want to know more about To Do then check out my To Do Essentials course.
It's got everything you need to master task management with Microsoft To Do.
You can buy it standalone or as part of our Collaboration School subscription.
If you're interested, I'll put the links in the description.
To Do could become your store for all your open loops wherever they come from,
so what other good ways are there to capture open loops?
Well, if you're like me you use Outlook every day.
Emails are landing in your inbox all day long that create more work for you
and they can become tasks.
And did you know that you can capture them straight out of Outlook?
When you flag a task in Outlook now it will be added to a list in To Do.
There is a list in To Do called 'flagged email'.
If you don't see the 'flagged email' list go into settings,
and make sure that flagged email is toggled on.
When an email has been flagged, it will show up in the flagged email list
and once it's there you can add steps, you can schedule it,
you can set a reminder and so on.
It also adds a link to the original message so you can open it up in Outlook
and you can move the task to other lists if you need to.
The other Microsoft 365 app that I spend most of my time in is Teams,
and did you know you can capture chats in Teams as tasks?
Say you've been asked to do something in a private chat or a Teams post and you want to turn it into a task...
If you haven't already, install Microsoft's tasks app for Teams.
It just takes a minute.
Just choose the ellipsis on the left hand rail in Teams and then type 'tasks' in the search box
and then choose 'add'.
Once that's done, you can use the ellipsis on any chat or post to capture it as a task in To Do.
You just choose 'create task' and it will ask you which list to put it in,
and you can set a priority and a due date,
and once your task is in To Do you can add steps to it and add it to your day.
So they are the best ways to capture your tasks.
Hopefully now you can see that To Do can become your store for all the tasks, wherever they come from.
I hope this helps and thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.
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