Day-at-a-Glance in Outlook

When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is take a look at the events and tasks scheduled for that day. I do this by using a customized view of my calendar. This shows me today’s activities and tomorrow’s. The latter is particularly important, because I want to make sure that I take time today to get prepared for tomorrow. This is easily done in Outlook. You simply click on the today’s date on the calendar in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Hold down the control key and then click on the second day. With this methodology you can even skip weekends, so that on Friday you can view both Friday and Monday’s activities.



The other thing I want to be able to view is all my Task Lists. However, I want them grouped by category with the !Today tasks at the top of the list. The way I have my list organized took a little programming.

First, I wanted the list grouped by category. Second, within the category, I wanted the list arranged by whether or not it had been completed. In other words, as I checked each item complete, I wanted it to fall to the bottom of the list and be crossed off. Third, I wanted the uncompleted items to be arranged by priority (with the highest priority items on top), so that I am always focused on what’s most important. Also, I want anything with a due date less than or equal to today to show up on the list. If the item is not yet due, I want to hide it.

It took a good amount of effort to get the filter set correctly. If you’re happy with my arrangment, just follow these steps:

1. Make sure the Task Pad View is turned on by selecting View | Task Pad.
   
   
2. Now select which tasks you want to display, by selecting View | Task Pad View. Make sure that Today’s Tasks and Include Tasks with No Due Date.
   
   
3. Now Right-click on the grey bar that says TaskPad:
   
   
   
   
4. Click on Customize Current View.
   
   
5. Now click on Filter.
   
   
6. Click on the tab that is labeled SQL. You may need to check the box that says Edit these criteria directly. All other tabs will be unavailable.
   
   
7. Now enter the following SQL code:
   
   

   ("DAV:isfolder" = false AND "DAV:ishidden" = false) AND ((("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/811c000b" = 0 AND ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/81050040" IS NULL OR "http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/81050040" <= 'today')) OR %today("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/810f0040")%))

   
   
It’s probably easiest just to copy this to the Windows clipboard and paste it into the dialog box.

That’s all there is to it!

© 2004, Michael S. Hyatt