Once you start using Outlook as your trusted system, you run into a few problems immediately. One of them is the fact that adding tasks to Outlook folders can take quite a few steps to accomplish. Time better spent on more satisfying or creative tasks. Enter Fingertips.
Throughout almost all of Outlook you can press Ctrl+Shift+K to create a new task item in the default tasks folder. This works pretty good, but only for the default tasks folder, not for your Someday/Maybe and Waiting For folders. And it still requires you to start Outlook or switch your focus to Outlook.
For frequent users of the task list functionality in Outlook, using Fingertips could be a great idea. With Fingertips you can easily add tasks from anywhere in Windows to any tasklist in Outlook. And you can create custom commands to add tasks with specific categories or boilerplate text.
Open Fingertips command window
Once you have downloaded and installed Fingertips, you can open the Fingertips command window from anywhere in Windows to add a task to Outlook, start an application or surf to a favorite website.
Press Ctrl+Grave (`) to open the Fingertips command window
The Grave is probably located at the top-left side of the keyboard, or left to the spacebar. Pressing this key combination should display the Fingertips command window. In the options dialog of Fingertips, you can set this key combination to another combination if you prefer to do so.
Type the "na" command and the subject for the task
Type na, a space and the description of the task that you want to add to Outlook
"na" is the default Fingertips command to add a Next Action to the default task list in Outlook. Any text that you type after the default command and a space will be used for the subject of the task. Don’t use comma’s right away, as they are used by Fingertips to separate parameters for tasks.
Press Enter, or add a semicolon
Press Enter, or add a semicolon ( ; ) first, if you don’t want to see the Task Item itself
After pressing the Enter key, Fingertips will add the task to Outlook and display the Task Item for you to add any other information, set categories or modify the subject. If Outlook isn’t running yet, Fingertips will start Outlook first.
If you want to add a task to Outlook without extra information, you can close the command line with a semicolon ( ; ). Fingertips will then just add the task to Outlook, without displaying the Task Item to you first.
Creating custom commands in Fingertips
Once you get the hang of it, you can press the "Edit" or "New" button at the bottom right corner of the Fingertips command window to open the Options Dialog. In this dialog you can modify commands, copy them or create new commands.
As far as I know, using Fingertips is the fastest and easiest way to add tasks to Outlook. What are you waiting for?
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