Microsoft Adds “My Day” Pane to Outlook.com, Outlook on the Web

Microsoft today announced the immediate availability of a new “My Day” pane to Outlook.com and Outlook on the Web. Or, as Microsoft calls these two different products collectively, “Outlook Web.”

“Context switching comes with a loss of efficiency,” Microsoft’s Sheetal Sethi explains. “Every time you move between your emails, calendar, and tasks, you lose productive time returning back to where you were. In order to help you be more productive and save your time, we’re bringing you a side-by-side view of your mail, calendar, and tasks in Outlook Web as you navigate through your work.”

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The My Day pane is accessible via a new My Day button in the Outlook.com and Outlook on the Web toolbar, and it features two tabs, Calendar and To Do, which of course display the relevant data from those parts of your account. The idea is that you can keep track of things you need to do during the day while viewing your email in the main part of the browser window.

Additionally, you can drag emails—or selected text in an email message—into the My Day pane to create new events in calendar or new tasks in To Do, and you can do so without having to switch between multiple tabs or windows. You can also use My Day to block out time in your calendar to accomplish tasks. To do so, open the calendar view and then drag and drop a task from My Day onto your calendar.

The My Day pane is also available from Office.com, Microsoft notes.

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Conversation 19 comments

  • crunchyfrog

    29 July, 2021 - 4:41 pm

    <p>It would be funny if they named it, "My Day Pain" instead.</p><p><br></p><p>I gave it a go and like the idea. It wants to insert everything from my calendar screen though and my calendar screen follows several employees which makes it very cluttered. I don’t see where I can make this pane only show my stuff or at least emphasize my items to make it easier to read.</p>

  • bart

    Premium Member
    29 July, 2021 - 4:52 pm

    <p>Weird. Had this feature for months (literally). Does outlook.com have A/B testing like Windows Insider?</p>

    • behindmyscreen

      30 July, 2021 - 8:36 am

      <p>The To-Do was added.</p>

  • djross95

    Premium Member
    29 July, 2021 - 5:42 pm

    <p>Outlook, Outlook.com, Outlook on the web, Android/iOS Outlook… Seriously, who (except IT administrators) can keep all this shit straight? </p>

    • behindmyscreen

      30 July, 2021 - 8:37 am

      <p>who cares? "Outlook on the platform you use" is what that means.</p>

      • wright_is

        Premium Member
        30 July, 2021 - 9:34 am

        <p>Except they are all different and offer different functionality. The most functionality is on Windows, followed by Mac. Everything else is a subset, except they all have their own unique features thrown in on top, which aren’t available on the other platforms.</p>

      • bettyblue

        30 July, 2021 - 9:40 am

        <p>Who cares? Try supporting this stuff. Try telling a user to go to "Outlook" and have them ask which one.</p><p><br></p><p>Microsoft is absolutely horrible with this kind of stuff. We just tell our users go to office dot com and login…and ONLY use that Outlook. Its the only version that is consistent….sort of.</p><p><br></p><p>Also it so odd that many of these features come to consumer accounts first. Examples Personal Vault. I see it in my Office Home sub…but not in my E5 sub at work. Edge started supporting "verifying link" with consumer accounts (Edge logged into a consumer profile) before it did so with business accounts.</p><p><br></p><p>OneNote….which version do you tell your users to use. The Win32 version was dead and so we moved all of our users over to the Windows 10 universal version. That version looks more like the Android/iOS/Mac version and so life was getting settled for the many users we have that use OneNote. Then some update to Office 365 happens and the old 2016 version of OneNote popped back on their computer…now called 2019? With a blog post in 2019 about how they brought it back and gave it "dark mode" and would be updating it….and that was all they have done since. Is it dead? Which version do you use for long term support? Does Windows 11 still install the Universal version…or is that dead. Please make it harder for users to use your software and trust it going forward.</p><p><br></p><p>Ohh and why are they constantly updating Skype? It just got the "Together Mode" from Teams. I though Teams is the way forward and Teams for consumer was replacing Skype????? More product confusion. No wonder people like Apple/Mac’s more and more.</p>

  • lewk

    Premium Member
    29 July, 2021 - 6:11 pm

    <p>I’ve had this since about late 2019. No one else, had it? That’s bizarre.</p>

    • yoshi

      Premium Member
      29 July, 2021 - 7:26 pm

      <p>Same. I’ve had this for a long time now. Odd.</p>

    • behindmyscreen

      30 July, 2021 - 8:38 am

      <p>I think "To-Do" is new.</p>

  • compuser

    29 July, 2021 - 8:59 pm

    <p>There’s something terribly wrong in the world if the fraction of a second it takes to switch between Email, calendar, and tasks is considered loss of productivity. People have gone completely insane with the whole time management shit.</p>

    • behindmyscreen

      30 July, 2021 - 8:39 am

      <p>It’s not about the time, its about the context switching. It makes takes you out of your train of thought and causes increased mental fatigue. </p>

    • Greg Green

      31 July, 2021 - 11:50 am

      <p>I remember an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where the father is complaining how technology has made everyone more demanding and less patient. In the background Calvin is holding a microwave dinner saying “Microwave for 5 minutes!! I don’t have that kind of time!”</p>

  • innitrichie

    29 July, 2021 - 11:35 pm

    <p>I’m thrilled to learn Microsoft has finally unlocked the power of My Day for every single one of us.</p><p>Gmail users really need to consider making the switch to the superior platform.</p>

    • spiderman2

      30 July, 2021 - 3:56 am

      <p>I use outlook.com since the begin, and I always cry when I have to use gmail (I usually configure my client or I used gmail in outlook.com) … I’m super glad that also my company finally ditched gsuite for office</p>

  • ianbetteridge

    30 July, 2021 - 8:26 am

    <p>I absolutely love the ability to drag from tasks to calendar to block off time. Use this everyday. </p>

  • pbeiler1

    Premium Member
    30 July, 2021 - 2:08 pm

    <p>The ToDo piece needs enhancement. The sort is weird. I sort by date, when using ToDo (use extensively for work). The current view does not help me.</p>

  • michael_jones

    04 August, 2021 - 4:42 pm

    <p>Too bad they ‘disabled’ the similar functionality in the Outlook desktop product. I have to turn it back on all the time.</p>

    • michael_jones

      04 August, 2021 - 4:44 pm

      <p>Guess you can’t edit anymore… hit Post too soon. </p><p><br></p><p>Anyhow, and it’s buried in the ‘View’ menu in the desktop client.</p>

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