Windows Vista: The Complete Reference (Complete Reference Series)

Tasks are helpful reminders for to-do items you have to complete, but are not appointments that you set up in your calendar. Examples of tasks include the following:

• Design new process workflow

• Buy milk on the way home

• Call Tracy in Marketing re: Sales Flyers

• Pick up kids at wrestling practice

To create a new task, right-click inside the Tasks area in the Navigation Pane. A submenu appears. Click New Task. A New Task item appears. Type the task item and press ENTER. The new task item appears in the Tasks area, as shown in Figure 7-6. In the Details pane, you can add more information about the task, including the following:

• Description Enables you to add a lengthy description of the task. Only part of this description can be seen in the Tasks area, but you can add several lines of text here.

• Calendar Enables you to choose which calendar the task belongs to if you have multiple calendars.

• URL Enables you to enter a web site address if the task involves additional information that you can obtain from a site.

• Completed Shows if a task is completed.

• Priority Enables you to select the importance of a task. You can choose Low, Medium, High, or None.

• Start Enables you to specify the starting date of your task. This is handy if you have a task that must be measured in terms of days to complete or a similar matrix.

• Due Date Enables you to specify when a task is due to be completed. If you have reminders set up for tasks, the reminder will display based on the Due Date you specify.

• Reminder Enables you to set Windows Calendar to alert you when a task is due. You can set either None or On Date.

• Notes Provides an area to type additional information about the task. This is a good place to add supporting documentation, helpful tips on completing the task, phone numbers , and so on.

Figure 7-6: Create new tasks to help you keep track of your projects and "to-do" items.

To specify that a task is completed, click inside the task's check box. Also, if you need to delete a task, click it and press DELETE. Again, Windows Calendar does not ask if you are sure you want to delete a task. It just deletes it and you cannot undelete it.