10 New Outlook Calendar Tricks to Save Time (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Your Outlook calendar is smarter than you think. I'm Elizabeth, and today I'll be walking you through some of my favorite Outlook calendar tips and tricks. Have an email in your inbox that needs to be turned into a calendar event? With the new Outlook, you can now drag and drop that email directly onto your calendar. Outlook automatically creates the event. It adds everyone from the initial email thread and even includes the original message in the invite details. From there, I can add or delete attendees, add a location, adjust the date and time, and I can even add additional details to the meeting invite. Zero copy and paste and zero retyping. Send. Do you work with people in other time zones? Or maybe you travel often? Or just maybe you have family in another location? Outlook can make this easier by stacking multiple time zones in one calendar view. Start by clicking the settings icon in the top right corner, then select calendar and view. Here you'll scroll down to time zones. The new version of Outlook has no limitations on the amount of time zones that you can add to your calendar. I recommend adding a label to each one to make it easier when you're viewing it in the calendar view. And now all you have to do is save. And you'll be able to see the time zones appear when viewing your calendar in day or month mode. Need to add somebody to your event, but don't want to spam everyone else with another notification? Just open your event, add your new invitee. And then when Outlook asks you who to notify, select only added or removed attendees. This way you won't be spamming everyone when you choose to add or remove somebody from an invitation. If you are more of a visual organizer, then creating categories can be a lifesaver. Just right click on a meeting and select categorize. Then you could just pick the category that best represents that event. As you can see here, I've already personalized these to fit my lifestyle. For example, you may want to create categories for work, doctor's appointments, travel, family events, kids' sports and school activities. You can edit each one of these categories, including the color and the name. Additionally, you can also set keyboard shortcuts for each category to work even smarter. Once you set these up, these colors automatically sync across your list Once you set these up, these colors automatically sync across your devices. So your calendar stays organized wherever you check it. If you're used to conditional formatting where Outlook applies a color on your behalf based on keywords in the event type, that's not yet available in the newest version of Outlook as of time of filming. If you have a recurring meeting on your calendar, you might need to modify upcoming sessions on occasion. To easily do this, select the meeting and then click on Edit. Here, you can make changes to this event, this and all following events, or all events in the series. If I want to make a change just for this specific event, I'll click on this event. Here, I can see that I'm editing one event in this reoccurring series. If I made a mistake, I can then choose to make additional edits. Otherwise, I can come down and change the meeting time, date, or anything else that I might need, and then click on Send. When you create an event in Outlook, you'll see that your default time intervals are set at 30 and 60 minutes. If you prefer to have shorter or longer default time intervals, open Settings, go to Calendar, and then select Events and Invitations. You'll then scroll down and check Shortened Duration for All Events. If I want to create a buffer of 10 minutes for any meetings under an hour, I would select End Event Early, and then choose 10 minutes. This would then allow me to end a meeting at 2.20 as opposed to 2.30. For longer meetings, I may want a 15-minute buffer, so I would select 15 minutes. Now, I think that Outlook made this a bit overly complicated, so it may take some trial and error to get the time intervals the way that you want. But once it's set up correctly, it's always nice to schedule meetings with a little bit of buffer time built in. Toggling back and forth between your calendar and emails could be a huge hassle and a time waster, but there are two ways to keep them open at the same time. The first is to select the calendar icon, right-click, and select Open in New Window. You now have your calendar and your email side-by-side. I could set this on a different screen, or I can toggle it here and do a split window so that I can more easily go back and forth between my email and calendar to schedule my meeting. Alternatively, at the top of your email screen, you'll see the My Day icon. If you click on this, it will bring up your calendar on the right-hand side of your screen, allowing you to access your email and write whilst having your calendar locked here on the right-hand side at all times. Sometimes one meeting just doesn't cut it. If you have a meeting on your calendar and you need to schedule a follow-up or a future event with the same attendees, just right-click on the meeting and select Duplicate Event. This will copy everything from the original meeting, allowing you to just make the changes to the date or time as needed. No more copying and pasting or having to retype everything from the previous meeting. One of my favorite Outlook features is the Shared Calendar feature, which can again be found under Settings. Here I could select which of my multiple calendars I want to share with someone, and then you can add their email address and decide whether they can edit the shared calendar or just view the details. Your recipient will then receive an email letting them know that you've shared your calendar with them. If you've ever opened Outlook at night or in a work meeting and felt like your screen was blasting you in the face with light, then Dark Mode is about to become your new best friend. In Settings, select General and then Appearance. Here you could choose whether you want your calendar to display in Light Mode, Dark Mode, or use the system's settings, which will default your Outlook calendar to whatever settings you have on your device at that time, whether it's your PC, tablet, or mobile phone. Now I'm able to work in the dark as well as reduce eye strain, and no one will know. And as a bonus tip, this is where you can also come to change the general appearance of your background in Microsoft Outlook, whether it's just changing the color or adding a fun theme to really personalize and modernize your Outlook calendar. Thanks for watching. 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