6 ways to streamline your tasks in Outlook

2. Work with the To-Do Bar


  Another handy Outlook feature is the To-Do Bar. You can set it up to display your calendar, appointment reminders, and list of tasks—even when you’re not using the Tasks features in Outlook. Here’s how:



1.While in Mail, Calendar, Contacts or Tasks, click the View tab, and then, in the Layout group, click To-Do Bar to open a drop-down menu.



2.If Normal is not already selected, click Normal to display the To-Do Bar on the right side of the window.



3.To further customize what appears in the To-Do Bar, click To-Do Bar again to open the drop-down menu. Select one or more of the following options:



◦Click Date Navigator to see a calendar page in the To-Do Bar.



◦Click Appointments to see upcoming appointment in the To-Do Bar.



◦Click Task List to see your list of tasks in the To-Do Bar.





You can customize the To-Do Bar in Outlook 2010 to suit your needs.

.If you selected Date Navigator, Appointments, and Task List, the To-Do Bar displays a calendar view, upcoming appointments, and your task list. The To-Do Bar remains visible even as you switch between Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, or Notes in Outlook.



To turn off or minimize the To-Do Bar, simply click To-Do Bar to open the drop-down menu, and then click Minimized or Off.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



3. Detail your time, billing, or mileage

It's not easy to remember the date you drove to an appointment with a client or how much time you spent completing a task in the office. Some people try to remember to bill the time or mileage later. Often, that means holding a jumble of details in your head, or trying to decipher multiple sticky notes or scraps of paper.



However, you can eliminate that hassle by storing all that information in a task. Then, when you need to bill the client, you can easily retrieve the details from your task.



Add details to a task

1.Do one of the following:



Outlook 2010

Open a new task: On the Home tab, click New Task.

Open an existing task: In your Tasks list or To-Do List, double-click a task.



Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2003

Open a new task: On the File menu, point to New, and then click New Task.

In Outlook 2003: In the task, click the Details tab.



2.Next, do one of the following:



◦In Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2007: On the Task tab, in the Show group, click Details.



◦In Outlook 2003: In the task, click the Details tab.



3.Type the desired details:



◦a.Total work — Enter the total number of hours you have spent for a given client. When you invoice the client, it will be easy to do a search by client and tasks and tally the number of hours.



◦b.Actual work — Type the actual number of hours spent on the task.



◦c.Company (or Companies) — Type the company involved. Sometimes a task will not specifically name the client, so this information is key to helping you track which tasks were performed for each client.



◦d.Mileage — Type the relevant date, mileage, and purpose of the trip.



◦e.Billing information — Type the billing information related to the specific task. Perhaps you charged this task at the full rate, but if not, this is a good place to remind yourself of the rate charge. You can add a note to yourself about why the full rate was not charged, for example.