Enter the Task Details The first field you must enter for a new task is the name of the task, which should be concise yet descriptive. In the example, I named the task
Do Taxes as a reminder of when my taxes are due. The
Status of the task indicates how far you are along in completing the task. Possible options include
Not Started, In Progress, Completed, Waiting , and
Deferred . Every task has a priority that is set with the
Priority field. A task's priority can be set to
Low, Normal , or
High , with
Normal being the default setting.
Some tasks have a specific due date, while others are more open-ended. If the task you are creating has a due date, set the
Due field to
By Date . After doing so, a date appears below the
Due field that allows you to specify the due date. Use the trackwheel to scroll through the due date and set the exact date and time for the task.
Regardless of the due date, every task has a time zone associated with it. The
Time Zone field defaults to the time zone you set for your device; see
3 Set the Date and Time .
An important part of creating a task is establishing a reminder for it. Not every task requires a reminder, but many do. Decide whether you want to be reminded on a specific date or relative to the due date of the task. I recommend the latter approach because, if you change the due date at some point in the future, the reminder will automatically change. To set a relative reminder, select
Relative in the
Reminder field and choose an amount of time before the due date for the reminder. To set a reminder for a specific date, select
By Date for the
Reminder field and then select a date.
The
Recurrence field enables you to create a task that recurs on a regular schedule. A good example of a recurring task is an expense report you must file once a month. To set the task as a recurring task, change the
Recurrence field from
None to
Daily, Weekly, Monthly , or
Yearly . Based on this setting, additional fields appear that enable you to get more specific about the task recurrence. You can get very detailed with the recurrence of a task. For example, you can select
Weekly in the
Recurrence field and then select
2 in the
Every field that appears. Then select
M and
F as the days for the recurring task, and the task will take place every other Monday and Friday.
NOTE
When you create a recurring task, only one instance of the task appears until you complete the task; make sure you don't mark the task completed until after you finish creating it. At that point, the completed task is shown with a completion icon next it, while the next occurrence of the task immediately appears as a new task.
The last two properties of the new task allow you to categorize the task and add extra notes about it. Extra notes are entirely up to your discretion and whether you have extra information to enter about the task. The
Categories field enables you to choose categories for the task, which can be helpful in organizing tasks. When you double-click the
Categories field, the
Select Categories screen appears. You have complete control over these categories and can create and delete them as part of the organization of PIM data, including tasks.