Purpose
Microsoft To-Do is a task management app that works on your phone, tablet, and computer. The app takes a simple to-do list, much like the one in Outlook, and adds a few new twists to it. It can be used with Outlook, as the tasks will mostly synchronize, or on its own as a stand alone.
Keep in mind that, if you are a heavy task user in Outlook, not everything will synchronize. Flagged e-mails will not show nor will task assignments or file attachments. At this point, To-Do is best used as a stand alone app to get a fresh start if you want to move away from using tasks in Outlook.
Availability
Microsoft To-Do is available for free and it also will pop up now as a new app that’s part of Office 365. If you’re at work and you have a paid subscription, you can use it as part of the Office 365 ecosystem. On a PC, it can be used through a web browser or downloaded from the Windows Store and installed on your PC. The tasks will sync with all other instances of To-Do that you have installed and linked to your Microsoft account.
Even if you are not an Office 365 subscriber, it can be downloaded from the Microsoft Store onto your PC or installed on your phone.
Basic Use
Video explanation
At the basic level, the tasks in the section called To Do’s are a simple list of your tasks. If you right click on one, you can set a reminder at a specific date or mark it complete.
If you double-click on a task, there is a simple field for notes but, keep in mind, you can’t attach files, at least not at the date of this writing which is February of 2018. That’s a little bit different than Outlook, but it does keep it nice and simple. Once you set a due date, you can also set the task to repeat at certain intervals.
The other thing you can’t do is assign these tasks to someone else. To-Do is just for your own use right now.
Taks Lists
In addition to it just being a plain list of tasks like Outlook, one of the big new things you that you can do is create task lists. You can customize the theme of each list and, of course, you can add emojis to each one. Left-click in the text field where the name of your list is. Different choices for emojis pop up as choices. If you don’t see what you want, you can surf the web and copy and paste an emoji from there.
You can also change the color of each of your tasks. If you get all hot when you work out, maybe you want it red. I made the purchases green, right? Because I’m spending money.
My Day
In addition to grouping things in lists, the another innovation as far as tasks go is the My Day function. At the beginning of each day, you open up My Day and it’s blank. The thought is you may have all of these tasks that are nicely categorized and they’re dated, but YOU choose what you do that day.
Click on the smart suggestion light bulb and it’s going to suggest things that you do today based on what you have in these lists and what the due dates are. I decided that clean my room is due today but there’s no way I’m doing that.
Now choose what you want to do with your day from scratch. This will give you a fresh list totally under your control. You can left-click and you can reorder by holding down your left mouse key or your finger if you’re on mobile and dragging it down. If you get it done, mark it as completed. If you decide you’re not going to do it, remove it from My Day by moving it to another list. If you decide you don’t want to do something on your My Day list at all, just delete it.
Conclusion
That pretty much covers Microsoft To-Do. There’s not too much clutter with it. It’s relatively simple it just lets you organize what you’re doing during the day and you can decide what tasks you see in your day and which ones you don’t.