Forced to use new Microsoft Outlook and Planner/To- Do ….any success stories??

[Murray]

How do the "My Day", "Important", and "Tasks" integrate with your different contexts below?

Sorry I just saw your reply!

The short answer is that "Tasks" is To Do's inbox and the other two lists are not necessary for GTD at all. There are also other smart lists that I have disabled.

More details:

"Tasks" is where an item goes in To Do when it has not been assigned to any list. So I use it as an inbox which I clarify same as my in tray or emails.

"My Day" is a tag that can be added to any item, whether it is on a list or just in Tasks. If you tag it with My Day (or just create the item in My Day), then it will appear in this valuable real estate at the top of the app. I don't routinely use this to plan my days, however sometimes I might enter items here if I have a logistically tricky day and I need to plan out a sequence of dependent steps involving time pressures. Or I might tag a few items from my action lists here as options for the day. More often I just leave it unused. Occasionally I use it as a notepad to type something like a draft sms. This can be handy because I can type on my laptop and then use the text on my phone. At the end of the day, items on My Day lose the tag and remain in Tasks or whatever list they were on already.

"Important" - I use this sometimes to highlight certain projects that I want to cast my eye over in between weekly reviews. I just mark the star next to the item on my projects list and it tags it as "Important" and shows it in the Important view. I usually would only have 4 or 5 items on there. I am a teacher, and at the time of these screenshots I was using it to highlight projects that I wanted to make progress on during the school holidays.

 

[Max34]

Ive been using Todoist as my Task Management system and love it. At my previous job I used the add-in and loved the ease of sending an email to my inbox or project with a couple clicks, I loved the AI features and how if I just typed ‘every 2 weeks’ it new to create a recurring task, etc. It’s the best system I’ve used successfully.

Now I’ve started a new job and I don’t have the same ease. My company won’t allow the add-in feature that links the email, nor can I click and send it to the inbox or project. Also, the others on my team use Microsoft Planer:To do. I’ve tried to get used to it but I’m having a hard time figuring out how to make it work with the GTD system.

Anyone have success? Are there any videos or guides to walk me through a set up? I need to get this system up and running before my tasks take over. Luckily I’m only a couple weeks in so work tasks aren’t crazy yet. But they will be!

You can get a workable GTD setup in Outlook and To Do if you keep it simple. Drag emails into Tasks to capture them fast. Use one main list as your inbox. Create a small set of context lists and move tasks there during your daily sweep. Use Planner only for team work and keep your personal next actions in To Do. It is not as smooth as Todoist, but once you separate capture and review it feels much easier to manage.

 

[René Lie]

I would never adhere to enforced software for my personal GTD system. In my organization there are A LOT of security measures, and they have chosen to use MS365. However, I use Notion for my personal system, which is available through the browser.

Any tasks or appoinments I get are manually transferred to my own system, and I see the "enforced work software" only as a platform to communicate to others, not to run my system...

 

[Y_Lherieau]

I would never adhere to enforced software for my personal GTD system. In my organization there are A LOT of security measures, and they have chosen to use MS365. However, I use Notion for my personal system, which is available through the browser.

Any tasks or appoinments I get are manually transferred to my own system, and I see the "enforced work software" only as a platform to communicate to others, not to run my system...

I completely get the distinction you’re making between your trusted GTD system and the organization’s enforced tools — that separation is healthy and very GTD-consistent.

One nuance worth adding, though: even in highly locked-down corporate environments, as soon as you have internet access, interoperability is technically possible. If applications expose documented APIs, they can talk to each other — sometimes directly, sometimes via middleware — regardless of whether the UI is “approved” or not.

In practice, security policies often restrict what is officially supported, not what is technically feasible. That’s why many people end up doing manual transfers: not because automation is impossible, but because IT hasn’t blessed it (yet).

So your approach makes perfect sense today. The interesting shift is that GTD doesn’t require where the system lives — only that capture, clarification, and trust remain intact. APIs simply open the door to reducing friction if and when the organization allows it.

In the meantime, using enforced tools purely as a communication layer — and keeping your GTD system sovereign — is a very sane equilibrium.

 

[René Lie]

I completely get the distinction you’re making between your trusted GTD system and the organization’s enforced tools — that separation is healthy and very GTD-consistent.

One nuance worth adding, though: even in highly locked-down corporate environments, as soon as you have internet access, interoperability is technically possible. If applications expose documented APIs, they can talk to each other — sometimes directly, sometimes via middleware — regardless of whether the UI is “approved” or not.

In practice, security policies often restrict what is officially supported, not what is technically feasible. That’s why many people end up doing manual transfers: not because automation is impossible, but because IT hasn’t blessed it (yet).

So your approach makes perfect sense today. The interesting shift is that GTD doesn’t require where the system lives — only that capture, clarification, and trust remain intact. APIs simply open the door to reducing friction if and when the organization allows it.

In the meantime, using enforced tools purely as a communication layer — and keeping your GTD system sovereign — is a very sane equilibrium.

Yeah, even though there are put extra restrictions on Office by IT, I've managed to find some loopholes... But my current setup works great, so I don't see any point in further investigation, I don't want to introduce extra vulnerability.

I sometimes find myself in meetings where I'm not even allowed to bring my car key... Pen and paper never fails me!

 

[gtd solo-studente]

@René Lie

If you please, are you suggesting your 80% / 90% - ish Microsoft ?

Google Drive, Docs, Calendar, etc. ?

Thank you very much

 

[programmer01135]

Something I discovered the other day, todo "buckets" show up in planner as "My Plans". In planner, you can view those tasks as a kanban board. So you can get the best of both worlds. Its still awkward compared to other systems, but you can make it work.

 

[René Lie]

@René Lie

If you please, are you suggesting your 80% / 90% - ish Microsoft ?

Google Drive, Docs, Calendar, etc. ?

Thank you very much

Yeah, mostly Microsoft. I used to have a Mac, but I am cheap, so when it got old, I built my own PC. I have an iPad as well, but other than that, MS. However, I mostly work in the browser, so it would work just as well on a Mac!

 

[morn]

The new Outlook + Planner/To Do combo is still a mess. Outlook’s slower and clunky, Planner and To Do don’t sync well. Bugs and sync issues are common. If you want real productivity, switch to tools like Todoist or Trello.

I worked in an MS only env and it was fine. You don't need todoist or trello. It's fine if you like using those applications. You can easily manage things with a single txt file should you need to. Or loose leaf paper. There are better options, but it's good to remember how simply things can be managed. But a lot of "work" is non-essential and it can be hard to learn to opt of it. But that's something GTD should be telling us: your commitments are broken.

What most people need to do is sit down and write out their requirements formally, especially prior asking for help. Frankly a lot of requirements whether implicit or explicit are extraneous if we are honest. Man has done a lot. More than many of us will without the wealth of complex task managers we have today. Once core requirements are understood, tools become a lot more easy to use. That many of us are "forced" to use rather awful tools (jira, asana, etc.) without any coherent framework with those we "must" interact with creates more problems than it solves. Which is why I tend to opt out of these frameworks.

We want to do too much and track and log at too fine detail. Ruthlessly ignoring noise rather than trying to turn it into signal makes even the most broken tools rather usuable. Again, back to what is truly required.