In the the figure below you can see my Goals tasks folder halfway down the list, with three subfolders that are named after my three goals. The reason this works is due to the Search Folder–like nature of the To-Do Bar task list, where tasks are collected from all Tasks folders. Surprisingly, all of the actual tasks from all folders will show up in my To-Do Bar task list where I can track them. Finally, within the bottom folders I create actual tasks. Under each of those folders I create task subfolders that I call projects, and under some of those, task subfolders I call subprojects. I create a Goals tasks folder in my main data store (my Exchange Mailbox), and under that I create three goal entries as task subfolders. In it I use a deep hierarchy-just to show you how deep this can go. Here is an example that you can use as a guide for your own implementation. But that’s okay-I just use various levels of projects to enable that, and only declare tasks at the bottom level. That’s because the parent task above it will not show up in my To-Do Bar. One thing I cannot do is create a subtask. For example, I could add subgoals or subprojects in the middle of the hierarchy. In fact I can make these hierarchies as deep as I want.
I am going to use that capability to create a goal>project>task hierarchy.
TASKS IN OUTLOOK 2010 WINDOWS
Windows Outlook has a strong capability to create hierarchical folders. So to that end, let me show you one way to do this in Windows Outlook that works relatively well.Ĭreating Hierarchical Folders in Windows Outlook But that’s just me, and a large and vocal group of task system users feels very strongly about using such hierarchies in task systems. Every time I spend much time creating goal>project>task hierarchies I don’t get much value out of it compared to the time it takes to create the hierarchies and maintain them. However, the utility of doing much work on it is debatable. In fact, some people say that every task we list we should be able to trace back to a goal, and tasks that are not related to our goals should not even be in our task list. So we should be able to trace many tasks back to a project and then to a goal. When you start planning your goals, projects, and tasks, it won’t take you long to realize that there is a natural hierarchy that goes something like this: From our goals we create projects and from our projects we create tasks. Since this material is still useful, we wanted to make it available online.Īre Hierarchies of Goals and Tasks Useful? I am placing it here because we are editing down the size of that book as we create its fourth edition and so are removing it in that new edition. This article was extracted from my Outlook book Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook (3rd Edition).
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