If you’d like to improve your productivity and focus on daily tasks, but in a way that works with your existing behaviour patterns, and doesn’t create ever-longer to-do lists, ‘My Day’ in Microsoft’s ‘To Do’ cross-platform app may help. Here’s how to use it:

– Go to https://todo.microsoft.com/tasks/ and sign-in with your online Microsoft 365 login or download the free app (from the links shown) and log in with your Microsoft account details (or create a Microsoft account if you don’t have one). ‘To Do’ can also be accessed from within Outlook by clicking on the blue tick icon in the left-hand menu.

– To create a task, click on ‘Tasks,’ name the task, and click on ‘Add.’

– Clicking on the horizontal tab for that task (from the right-hand menu) allows a due date to be set, selecting when you’d like reminders, adding a colour coding, selecting whether you want the task repeated, or adding a note or a file to the task.

– In the right-hand menu, click on ‘Add to My Day’ to add it to the tasks for the date selected. Clicking on ‘My Day’ (left-hand menu) will then show which tasks are set for which day.

– To group related tasks together, type a list name in the ‘New List’ field (left hand side) and hit enter.

– Go to a task, click on it, right mouse click, select ‘Move task to…’ and select the list name.

– When the task is completed, click on the tick in the radio button to the left of the task to cross it off.