📆 Outlook Calendar Tips & Tricks

[Music] hey everyone kevin here today i want to show you my favorite top 14 tips and tricks in the outlook calendar there are lots of good ones that are going to help you save time if you want to jump around this video feel free to use the time stamps down below alright let's jump on the pc tip number one i can use natural language to set the meeting start time in outlook let's say that i have a co-worker who wants to meet i don't know in seven weeks to figure that out i'd have to click on the calendar icon and here i have to count forward seven weeks now was it the 25th or was it the first i lost track so i'd have to go back and count it again instead i could let outlook do the heavy lifting for me here i'll highlight this date and i'll simply type in in seven weeks then i'll hit enter and outlook determines what that date is for me now along with that i could also type in something like hey let's meet the second monday in july then i'll hit enter and it looks like that's july 12th when i click on the calendar icon here i can confirm that july 12th is in fact the second monday in july i could also set different holidays let's say i want to know hey what about christmas let's meet on christmas when i hit enter here it figures out that it's december 25th so it's pretty smart in figuring out what these dates are but before you think it's all knowing it doesn't get every date right i don't know why but here if i type in something like thanksgiving and hit enter i get this ugly error message it might be because thanksgiving falls on different days every year but i do know that it's the last thursday in november so here i could type in last thursday and let's type in november hit enter and it looks like it's 11 25 2021. tip number two you can use the date navigator to view your calendar in whatever way you want to view it now right now i'm in the week view of my calendar and if i go up above there are a few different predefined views i can view just the individual day the work week the week the month and there's even a schedule view but what if i want to see even more time or what if i just want to see some specific dates let's first look over at the date navigator over here on the left hand side so right now i'm currently viewing the month view and so i see a little bit of april and a little bit of may if i want to see more months coming up here i could drag this and here now i see three months here i can even drag this area and i can pull it out and here i can see half a year all in one view now with all these different views here especially the month view i just see the full month what if i just want to see let's say two weeks on my calendar so maybe this week and the upcoming week i can go over here and right over on the left hand side of the weeks my cursor changes and here i could highlight this week and i could click and drag down to cover two weeks so now i could just limit my view to two weeks or even here i could highlight three and then i could see three so i could select what time period i want to see by dragging my mouse now let's say let me jump into the day view here let's say someone wants to schedule a meeting with me and they give me a few different options maybe they say hey i can meet on the 14th the 16th or the 29th does 3pm on any of those days work now typically i'd probably click into the 14th and the 16th and i go through day by day trying to see which one works the best instead i can view all of these dates at the same time right now i'm on the 14th and i'll press the control key and click on the 16th and i'll click on the 29th and so now you see i have those three days all side by side so i can look at my calendar and say oh 3 pm well that works for me on the 16th or on the 29th tip number three you can reply to an email thread with a meeting and it'll preserve all of the context from the email thread here i have an email message from patty and this is probably not a topic that i want to just email back and forth on instead i want to set up a meeting here i have this email message selected right up on top in the home tab within the respond category i see the option to reply with a meeting i could also press the shortcut key control alt and r let's click on this this opens up a new email message and you'll see a few things here for the title it pulled in the title of the email thread it also pulled in patti she was on the 2 line so she's a required attendee if anyone was on the cc line they'd be included as an optional attendee when i look down below it automatically turns it into a team's meeting and if i scroll down it preserves all of the content of the message this makes it a lot easier to set up a meeting especially if you want to discuss an email thread tip number four and this is similar to the previous tip where we set up a meeting but instead with this one we're going to set up an appointment right here i received an email from nestor and he keeps bugging me about investing in bitcoin it looks like he's made a pretty substantial amount of money now he keeps telling me that i'm going to miss the train on this and so maybe i should set aside some time where i can investigate if it makes sense for me to set up an appointment i can click on this email message and i can drag and drop it down to the calendar icon once i hover over i'll release this opens up a new appointment and it pulls in the subject of the email it also pulls in all of the context all i need to do now is select a date and a time and my appointment is ready to go tip number five you can very easily recreate a meeting on your calendar tomorrow we have a new cookie brainstorming session coming up and we just have an hour set aside for this it's probably not going to be enough time to come up with some new amazing cookie recipes so i want to make sure i set up a subsequent meeting now i could go in and set up a whole new meeting invite all the same people provide all the same context or i could simply click on this meeting press control and then drag over and i now have a new meeting now it's not formalized yet i need to click in and send it to all of the meeting participants here i've clicked into the meeting and then i'll click on send and that meeting is now formalized that was pretty easy tip number six i can change the time scale that's shown within outlook by default when you look at the calendar here it shows 30 minute increments but what if i want more granularity or maybe less granularity i can come over to the left hand side where i see the time scale i can right click and i can change it to any one of these values here so let's say i want to set up some 45 minute meetings here i'll change the scale to 15 minutes here now you see a lot more details and i could highlight a 45 minute slot right here if i want to change back i simply right click and here i can switch it back to the default of 30 minutes tip number seven you can very easily show multiple time zones on your outlook calendar one of my designers at the kevin cookie company grady works and lives in hawaii and he's requested that we meet at 10 a.m on friday now he's thinking about his local time zone so i have to do the math to convert it luckily outlook can help me with that here once again i'll go over to the left hand side where i see the time i can right click and there's an option to change the time zone let's click on this this opens up calendar settings and here in the time zone section i can see that my default time zone is currently set to seattle and here i can add up to three time zones total so let me click on this one right here with hawaii and it's currently set to the hawaii time zone but i can choose whatever time zone i want next i'll click on ok now on my calendar i can see the hawaii time zones alongside seattle and it looks like 10 am is 1pm in seattle so i could click here and then i could set up the meeting as an alternative i can also go into a meeting invitation and remember grady who's in hawaii said he wants to meet at 10 am right over here i can check this box for time zones and here i can set it to the hawaiian time zone so there is 10 am and then on my calendar it'll show up as 1pm pacific time tip number eight you can view other calendars side by side with your own calendar and along with that you can even overlay these other calendars on top of your calendar right here we can see my upcoming week at the kevin cookie company and we've also created a company-wide calendar that includes all of the different cookie holidays throughout the world over on the left hand side i see that other calendar so i'll click on this one and now i can see my calendar right next to all of the cookie holidays right up here you'll see that we're celebrating philippines national cookie day tomorrow right now i see them side by side if i want to see it overlaid on top of my calendar i can simply come up here click on this arrow icon and right now i can see the company calendar on top of my calendar if i want to create an event on the cookie holiday calendar i can simply select this one as the active calendar and now i can create an event but if i want to create an event on my own calendar i can come up here click on calendar this is now the active calendar and i can create an event here to remove the overlay i can click on this arrow and this will push it so it's side by side again and once i'm done looking at this calendar i can click on the x up here now you might be wondering well how do i get other calendars in here so i could see them side by side or so i could overlay them well right up here on top you can add additional calendars you can add other people's calendars from your organization you could even find calendars on the internet maybe your favorite sports team has a calendar or you can even create a new blank calendar and then you can share it with others so you can work together on a shared calendar tip number nine you can open up a new window for your calendar so you can look at your calendar alongside your email right now i have my calendar open but if i want to jump to my email then i lose context of my calendar instead i can leave my calendar open all the time as well right down here in the bottom left hand corner i can right click on the calendar and there's the option to open in new window let's click on this this now opens up another instance of my calendar i could put this on a different monitor or i could put it over to one side of my screen and over here i could jump into my mail and if i open up this again now i have my mail and my calendar both open at the same time tip number 10 you can use color to better visualize your calendar now right now all of my upcoming meetings and appointments are just in the default or the standard blue here if i right click on the calendar i can change the default color maybe i want to go with just a calming green but maybe i have some meetings coming up that really need my attention here for example patty scheduled a meeting with me to talk about the new york flagship store issues and before this meeting i need to make sure i think of some excuses or sorry rather rationale for why we're having these different issues i could use categories to do this to set up categories click on the meeting item and this opens up the meeting ribbon up on top over here i see different categories i could go with one of these predefined categories or i could even set up my own i'll click on all categories right here once again i see all of the different categories i could create my own or i could even rename some of these i'll just use one of these existing categories the yellow category one thing that's really neat is over on the right hand side i can also set a shortcut key to toggle this category on i'll go with ctrl f2 and then click on ok back within the calendar now with this item selected i can press ctrl f2 and that'll toggle it yellow so this way i definitely won't miss that this meeting is coming up so this way i'll have some time to prepare if i press ctrl f2 again that'll toggle off the color tip number 11 i can change my work hours in outlook if we look over on my calendar on the left hand side you'll see that right here it's a grayish color but as soon as we hit 8 am all the way through 5 p.m it's a little bit lighter this indicates that these are my core working hours and once again past 5 p.m it's a little bit darker when someone goes to schedule a meeting with me they'll see that these are my core working hours now if you know me at the kevin cookie company eight to five is a really long day i want to cut down on when people schedule meetings with me over here i'll right click on my calendar and then i'll go down to calendar options within calendar options i can adjust my work hours and eight to five once again that's a really long day let me instead shift that maybe let's say i start at 10 am and i should probably be out by about let's say 2 pm you know i'll work really efficiently between those four hours i'll leave the days as is but i could adjust those as well once i'm all done i'll click on ok back within my calendar now you'll see that my core hours now show up between 10 and 2. so hopefully this influences when people schedule meetings with me hopefully this lightens my meeting load we'll see what happens tip number 12 you can bring even more power into your outlook calendar by using add-ins back in the mail view on the home tab all the way over on the right hand side you have the option to get third party add-ins let's click on this this opens up a prompt where you can add hundreds of different add-ins into microsoft outlook you might be wondering well are there any good ones for calendaring one of my favorites is called find time here i'll click on this with find time if you're having difficulty meeting with others maybe they have a really busy calendar maybe they work in a different company and you can't see their free busy data with fine time you can propose a few times and then others can vote on it so it makes it really easy to find a time that works for everyone another reason i also love this add-in when i worked at microsoft i worked on the incubation team that launched fine time so you should definitely give it a try tip number 13 you can set meetings to automatically start late or end early when you look at my calendar here i have a lot of meetings that just run up into the next meeting and there's no buffer in between there's no time to go to the bathroom or grab a drink of water luckily we can change this using the settings here i'll click on the calendar right click and let's go down to calendar options within calendar options right near the top here i could toggle this on i can set a meeting to either start late or end early i'll go with end early right down here for shorter meetings if it's less than an hour i can set it to five minutes here i'll go with that and maybe if the meeting's longer than let's say an hour i can have it end 10 minutes early i'll select 10 minutes and then click on ok here i'll try to schedule an hour meeting now let me click on new meeting request here within the new meeting request you'll see that the end time is automatically truncated by 10 minutes so we're gonna go from two to two fifty so finally people have some time for a bio break tip number fourteen and unfortunately this is the very last tip of today but this is a good one i'm going to show you how you can make it easier to look at your calendar and no i'm not going to show you how you can just magically make meetings disappear instead i'm going to show you how you can use dark mode here within the calendar simply right click on your calendar and go down to calendar options within calendar options over on the left hand side click on general and right down here you have the option to change the office theme this will change the office theme across all of your different office apps right here i'll click black and then i'll click on ok and look at this the calendar already looks better it's a little bit easier on my eyes and maybe in the future i'll come up with a tip where maybe i could cut down on your meeting load alright if you learned some new tips that you're going to put to use please give this video a thumbs up to see more videos like this be sure to hit that subscribe button also if you want to see me cover any other topics on this channel leave a note down below alright well that's all i had for you today i hope you enjoyed and as always i hope to see you next time bye [Music] you

Channel: Kevin Stratvert

Views: 466,466

Rating: 4.9776421 out of 5

Keywords: kevin stratvert, outlook, outlook tips and tricks, outlook tutorial, microsoft outlook tips and tricks, microsoft outlook, outlook tips, outlook tips and tricks 2020, 2020, 2021, tips, tricks, calendar, microsoft, microsoft outlook tutorial, tutorial, outlook 365, outlook tricks, how to use outlook, office 365, outlook calendar tips and tricks, ms outlook, office 365 outlook, outlook hacks, stratvert, tip, hack, hacks, microsoft 365, beginners, beginner, how to, outlook calendar, 2019

Id: 6BU_ELSsDLc

Length: 16min 34sec (994 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 14 2021