Microsoft To Do has been incorporated into Microsoft Outlook

they took surprisingly long but Microsoft finally Incorporated the to-do app into Outlook I remember about 20 years ago that Outlook when you loaded it up there was this tasks area and I used to use it so early in my career 20 years ago a place to add things to remind you what to do as the years have passed I felt like the features in Outlook that tasks facility weren't very good and I started looking around by about 2007 I found something called remember the milk and it's still around today and it's still very good but I decided not to use it after about four years but it was very good and introduced me to this idea of a really good task management app so let me go through very quickly the history of the apps that I've used so first of all it was Outlook the tasks facility I used that probably from 2004 to about 2007 I think so that was a great way stay on top of my work then 2007 I discovered remember the milk might have been 2008 but around there um and I used remember the milk from 2007 probably to 2011 I think so 2010 2011 it was really good um what I really liked about it is on an Android device I I I would see all of the um reminders and the tasks and projects I'm working on so on on the front page so on a widget and then when I get to my laptop it would synchronize so if I added something it would be on the laptop and vice versa and I thought this was wonderful I didn't have the ability to do that on Outlook that was what what was missing um so remember the milk was going really well then I decided to move from remember the milk to the next one which was todoist so I used todoist for a couple of years it was very good and then from todoist I think I went back to remember the milk but at some point I eventually moved to tick tick and I used tick tick for a very long time probably 2015 to about 2022 I think somewhere around there so tick tick fantastic used it for many years really liked it um and probably actually till last year I was still using tic ti so in 2004 now 2003 yes I was still using tic TI all the way to 2003 in 2022 I started to take Apple devices more seriously so I'd been using MacBooks since about 200 3 but I was kind of like I'm still an Android device user I still use Windows here and there but I think by about 2021 2022 I just went in my mind I just went you know what it's better when if you have to use a Macbook for work it's better to use an iPhone it's better to use an Apple Watch and I just kind of went all in on Apple except I was using tic tick so sometime passed and I kept comparing tick tick with apple reminders feeling like tick tick is so much better but then Apple introduced a couple of features and finally just this year actually in my mind Apple reminders it is good like tick tick really good so I use apple reminders with no regret and I've given up on tick tick given up is the wrong word I've needed I've denounced it and I've focused on Apple because the reason why by the way is that Apple reminders works better with the Apple watch it works better with Siri um but it's not otherwise as feature Rich As Tik tick and the good thing about Tik tick is it works across U you know Apple Windows Android so that's okay but if I um only use Apple devices Apple reminder works really well for me I would be very happy to move back to tick tick or Outlook so now we're getting to the point after I've given you my history of experiences of using these different task management apps Apple acquired one of the competitors of todoist and tick tick and so on called wonderist wonderist I think it was wonderist it comes from the name Wonder lust I I guess that's where they got their inspiration from and I think the idea originally was it's good app for preparing for your holidays so I think maybe um so it was called Wonder list and and Microsoft acquired it but Microsoft Microsoft by this time also had their own built app called Microsoft to do which wasn't very good it actually maybe I'm being a bit harsh it was okay it was okay but wonderist was significantly better and it was good like the way todoist is good and remember the mil tick it it was good like that you know like a startup had created this thing Microsoft came along and said we'll have that they bought it and for a little while they were running Microsoft to-do and wonderless side by side until they eventually copied all of the features from wonderist into Microsoft to-do and then they closed wonderist and they just got rid of it so then Microsoft to-do let's close this thing here um Microsoft Todo um for about five years now I feel like has been operating as an app on the Microsoft 365 ecosystem and it's really good and it's gradually becoming integrated with certain things like Microsoft planner and Microsoft teams but when you in Outlook because that was in my mind I was thinking this is how it got introduced to this sort of software 20 years ago that in Outlook when you press that you've got your email you've got your calendar there was always this tasks option when you press tasks for the last or three years it would open up a separate product Microsoft to do so now I'm getting to the point of this video which is Microsoft to finally Incorporated to do inside Outlook and that's what I'm sharing on my screen so if you're not watching this on on on a computer when you own Outlook Microsoft Outlook you typically your email is probably your primary location then you have your calendar and now it's got things like co-pilot I think groups things like this uh various other apps but there's this check mark and when you press on it it stays Within Outlook it doesn't open up another um app and you can from here adjust your tasks and uh you know assign them either to yourself or to other people and it automatically does the same thing on your mobile version or the one you've got installed on your iPad or the one you've got installed on your surface laptop or whatever it might be I Hazard a guess that many people are not using this which is a real shame because it's a fantastically powerful tool for being productive and staying on top of the things that you need to do it's very quick to add tasks in there it's very quick to get an overview of what you need to do today and the thing that may tempt me back from using Apple reminders to using Microsoft is that I like the way that when you receive emails you can drag the emails into your to-do and then the emails you essentially archive them and then you can reorganize and prioritize them in a much better sort of view you like this can ban option um so if you're interested in seeing that in action I'll make another video about in the future but for now I really just wanted to highlight that to-do has been incorporated into Outlook finally it's both in the web version which I'm sharing on my screen and in the app version that I've got installed on my Mac I hope you enjoy being productive with business technology like I do see you next time