Customise your Tasks View

In Outlook Tasks, you can find your tasks and view their status with a quick glance. If you choose the appropriate view for your needs, you can save a surprising amount of time. As a quick example, you can prioritise the items that are most critical on your list without scrolling through all the other tasks that are still marked as incomplete. If you prefer to deal with a priority task or if you want to sort your tasks by project, name, or who you assigned it to, the options in Tasks can help you organise your tasks the way that works best for you and the project at hand.

To discover the task view that works best for you in Outlook 2010, in the Navigation pane on the left side of the window click Tasks. On the Ribbon, click the View tab, and then, in the Current View group, click Change View.

For a basic view of your tasks and main details, click Simple List. In this view, you see columns for Task Subject, Due Date, Categories, In Folder, and Sort by: Flag Status.

The Advanced View Settings dialogue box is available for each view. You can use it to add or remove categories, set various filtering parameters, and even adjust type size and font.

To reset a Tasks view that you’ve customised back to its original settings, click the View tab, click Reset View, and then, when the dialogue box asks you if you’re sure you want to reset the view, click Yes.

Try experimenting with different views, options, settings, fonts. If you don’t like the way your tasks appear, you can always reset the view to the default settings or choose a new one. The purpose here is to choose which view helps you sort your tasks so that you aren't digging for information. Create unique views that provide the information you need. This is your chance to customise Outlook to meet your needs.

Outlook 2007 users: The processes for changing or customising your tasks views vary slightly. To find out more about customising views in Outlook 2007, go to Customise Your View.