Automating Your !Daily Disciplines Task List in Outlook

Yesterday, I wrote about how I use a !Daily Disciplines task category in Outlook. I use this category to group those basic tasks that I want to accomplish each morning before leaving for the office. Today, I want to tell you how to automate this list in Outlook, using a little VBA code. This will enable you to enter the list with a single mouse click.

First, make sure that you have Outlook loaded. If you are new to VBA programming or “macros,” as they are sometimes called, start by selecting Tools | Macro | Macros … or just press Alt-F8. Either way, you’ll get a dialog box that looks like this:

Type in the phrase “DailyDisciplines” (without the quotes). This will open up the VBA editor with the cursor positioned between the Sub and End Sub statements like this:

Delete everything from the word Sub on the first line to the word Sub on the last line.

Now click here to open a  new browser window with the code. Select all of the text (using Ctrl-A), copy it to the Windows clipboard (Ctrl-C), and then go back to the VBA Editor. Now paste the code you copied to the clipboard into the editor window (Ctrl-V).

Your should now be looking at the code in the VBA editor. I have highlighted each of the tasks in yellow. (You can click on the graphic to enlarge it.) Change these to tasks that are meaningful to you. If you have more tasks than I do, just copy one of the code blocks and paste it into the code. If you have fewer tasks, just delete the code block or comment it out by preceding the line with an apostrophe (actually, the foot mark: ').

Okay, you're almost done. Now close the VBA code window by pressing Alt-F4. Make sure you are now looking at Outlook. To run the basic macro, press Alt-F8, select the DailyDisciplines macro and press Enter. All of your Daily Discipline tasks should be instantly entered into Outlook. If you have your tasks grouped by categories, you should have a task pad that looks like this:

If you want to really get fancy, you can assign this to an icon on the toolbar. My icon, for example, looks like this:

It took me about 10 minutes to create using the built-in icon editor that ships with Outlook. To get there, right-click on the Toolbar and select Customize. You will get a dialog box that looks like this:

Now follow these steps:

1. Select the word Macros in the Categories list box. All your macros will then appear in the Commands list box.
   
2. Select the DailyDisciplines. (Note: It may be preceded by “Project1,” or some other project name, depending on how many other macros you have and how they are organized.)
   
3. With the left mouse button still depressed, drag the macro onto the tool bar where you want it.
   
4. Now right-click on the macro name on the tool bar.
   
5. If you don’t want to create an icon, just give the button a new name. If you want to create an icon, select Edit Button Image…

Now whenever you click on the button, the program will launch the additional windows.

This kind of automated list building has all kinds of possibilities. Perhaps you have already thought of some. In an upcoming post, I’ll show you how to use this basic methodology to build your weekly review list.