📆 Outlook Calendar Tips & Tricks

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 timestamps  down below. All right let's jump on the PC. Tip #1. 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 th

e 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 l

ike that's July 12. 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 Than

ksgiving 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 #2. 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 predef

ined views. I  can view just the individual day, the work week, the week, the month, and there's even a scheduled  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 month

s. Here  I could even drag this area and I could pull it out and here I could 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 no

w 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 3:00 PM 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 CTRL 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 #3. You can reply to an e-mail thread with a  meeting, and it’ll preserve all of the contacts from th

e e-mail thread. Here I have an e-mail  message from Patty, and this is probably not a topic that I want to just e-mail back and forth  on. Instead, I want to set up a meeting. Here I have this e-mail message selected. Right up on  top in the home tab within the respond category, I see the option to reply with a meeting. I  can also press the shortcut key, CTRL + ALT, and R. Let's click on this. This opens up a new  e-mail message and you'll see a few things here. For the title, it pulled in the

title of the  e-mail thread, it also pulled in Patty. She was on the to 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 Teams 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 e-mail thread. Tip #4 and this is similar to the  previous tip where we set up a meeti

ng, but instead with this one, we're going  to set up an appointment. Right here, I received an e-mail 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 e-mail 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 e-mail. 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 #5. 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 re

cipes, so I want to make sure I set up a subsequent meeting. Now I could go in  and set up a whole new meeting and invite all the same people, provide all the same context,  or you could simply click on this meeting, press CTRL 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

#6. I can change the time scale that's shown  within Outlook. By default, when you look at the calendar here, it shows the 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 hig

hlight a 45-minute slot right here.  If I want to change back, I simply right click, and here I could switch it back to the default  of 30 minutes. Tip #7. 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 10:00 AM 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, o

nce 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 could choose whatever time zone I want.  Next, I'll c

lick on OK. Now on my calendar, I can see the Hawaii time zones alongside Seattle,  and it looks like 10:00 AM is 1:00 PM in Seattle, so I could click here and then I could set up  the meeting. As an alternative, you can also go into a meeting invitation and remember, Grady,  who's in Hawaii, he said he wants to meet at 10:00 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's 10:00 AM, and then on my  calendar, it’ll show up as 1

:00 PM Pacific tike. Tip #8. You can view other calendars side-by-side  with your own calendar, and along with that, you could 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 nex

t 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 could 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 can see them side-by-side or so I could overlay them? Well right up here  on top, you can add additio

nal 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 could even create a new blank calendar and then you can share it with others,  so you can work together on a shared calendar. Tip #9. You can open up a new window for your  calendar, so you can look at your calendar alongside your e-mail. Right now, I have my  calendar open, but if I want to jump to my e-mail, then I l

ose 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 can 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 #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 meeti

ng, 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 can 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 will toggle off the color. Tip #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 8:00 AM all the way through 5:00 PM, it's a little bit lighter. This indicates  that these are my core working hours, and once again, past 5:00 PM, 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 8 to 5 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 8 to 5, once again, that's a really long day. Let me instead shift  that. Maybe, let's say I start at 10:00 AM and I should probably be out  by about, let's say, 2:00 PM. You know, I'll work really efficiently in 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  10:00 and 2:00, so hopefully this influences when people schedule meetings with me. Hopefully this  lightens my meeting load. We'll see what happens. Tip #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 righ

t-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  FindTime. Here I'll click on this. With FindTime, 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 FindTime, you can propose a few times, and then others can  vote on it, so it makes it really easy to find the 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  FindTime. So, you should definitely give it a try. Tip #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 n

o 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 can 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 5 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 going to go from 2:00 to 2:50.  So finally, people have some time for a bio break. Tip #14, and unfortunately, this is the very last  tip of today, but this is a good on

e. 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 acros

s 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. All right, 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 a

ny other topics on this channel,  leave a note down below. All right, well, that's all I had for you today. I hope you enjoyed,  and as always, I hope to see you next time, bye.