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.