Setting up a recurring task in Outlook 2003
I was having trouble with a recurring task in Outlook and I thought
I’d share how to set it up correctly for anyone else. I wanted a
recurring task to occur every workday with a reminder at 4 PM, the task
was to remind me to fill out my timesheet, as I usually wait until the
day its due before I fill it out.
What you need to do is setup your task with the recurrence
pattern that you want and with the reminder time. Then whever the
reminder pops up, rather than dismiss the reminder, you need to open
the task item and mark it as completed. This will cancel the
reminder for that instance of the task, and leave the next task active
so that you can get a reminder for that one. If you dismiss the
reminder, the reminder will never come back, making the task pretty
much useless (in my case).
daughtkom said,
Wrote on November 2, 2005 @ 2:42 pm
Or you can do what I do — wait until the accounting person tells you that you’re three days late on your timesheets, then do your best to remember what you did last week.
That seems to happen every week for me.
I actually have an Excel file popup when I login each morning. The file is just a log that I use to complete the “real” timesheets (which are way too complicated).
Anonymous said,
Wrote on November 2, 2005 @ 2:57 pm
Thats’ strange. I’m still using Outlook 2000 and I do not experience that behavior at all. I can dismiss one and it keeps the reminder in for the next one. I’m pretty sure I’ve used Outlook XP and it did the same thing. Maybe this is new to Outlook 2003? Very strange if they actually changed that.
breichelt said,
Wrote on November 2, 2005 @ 4:23 pm
Yeah, thats usually what I did, wait until I got the email pleading me to fill it out, but I’d rather do it incrementally, just for my own sake as well
Dan, I only tried it once so I might have done something else to screw the recurring task up as well, for instance, I never marked the task as complete, so maybe it was always stuck on the same task, I dont know, but what I detailed above does what I need
Anonymous said,
Wrote on November 2, 2005 @ 4:35 pm
Oops - I think we are talking about different things. I put mine on my calendar, not in my task list. Sorry about that.
Anonymous said,
Wrote on November 2, 2005 @ 6:10 pm
…and then if you’re anything like me and slap the dismiss button out of sheer habit, make another recurring task that says “Don’t dismiss your timesheet task”
Seriously though, this is a good tip, one that drove me nuts for a while. So much so that I now do what Dan does and put anything importantly recurring in my calendar. Not to go too sideways here, but if you’re using calendar for often recurring stuff like that, don’t forget to mark yourself as free or it makes it hard to sort the real appointments from the daily grind tasks.