Planner and To Do: managing tasks in a small team with Microsoft 365

To Do for personal lists

To Do is a personal task list. It suits the jobs only you are responsible for: call the insurer back, review the draft lease, renew the vehicle registration. You can set due dates and reminders, break tasks into steps and keep separate lists for different areas of work. Flagged emails in Outlook appear in To Do automatically, so turning an email into a task is one click.

The My Day view lets you pick what you will focus on today from all your lists, which suits people who plan their day each morning. It clears itself overnight, so yesterday's leftovers do not pile up unseen; you choose again each day. To Do also works across devices. A task added on a phone while waiting for a coffee appears on the laptop at the office, and Outlook can show your tasks alongside the calendar so you can block time to actually do them. For people juggling dozens of small jobs, that visibility alone reduces the number of things that slip.

Planner for shared work

Planner is built around plans, each a board of tasks arranged in columns called buckets. A plan is attached to a Microsoft 365 group or Teams channel, so everyone in that team can see it. Tasks can have one or more people assigned, due dates, checklists, attachments and labels. Views show tasks by bucket, by person, by due date or on a schedule.

This suits projects such as an office move, a website rebuild or a product launch, and recurring processes such as month-end close, client onboarding or new staff setup. For the month-end example, create a task for each step, assign it, and copy the plan each month. Everyone can see what is done and what is holding things up without a status meeting.

How the two connect

Tasks assigned to you in Planner show in To Do under an Assigned to me list. That means you can keep your own personal tasks in To Do and see your team responsibilities alongside them. Completing a Planner task in To Do updates it in Planner. Microsoft has also been bringing Planner and To Do together inside a combined Planner app in Teams, so the exact layout may vary depending on when you look. In practice, encourage staff to check one place each morning for everything they need to do. For most people, that is To Do or the Planner app in Teams. Fewer places to look means fewer forgotten tasks.

Setting up a plan that people actually use

Keep buckets simple. For a project, buckets by phase or area work well, such as design, procurement, installation and handover. For a process, buckets by status, such as to do, in progress, waiting and done, are easier to follow. Give tasks clear names starting with a verb, such as book the electrician for the data cabinet power, so anyone can see what has to happen. Add the plan as a tab in the relevant Teams channel so it is visible where the team already works. A plan buried in a separate app is quickly forgotten. Review the plan briefly in a weekly team catch-up and close finished tasks so the board reflects reality.

When Planner is not enough

Planner works well for small teams and straightforward projects. It does not handle dependencies between tasks well, does not track time or costs, and does not suit managing dozens of projects at once with resource planning. For construction programmes, engineering projects or client work billed by the hour, a project management or practice management system designed for that work will serve you better. Microsoft has a premium tier of Planner with features like dependencies and timeline views, licensed separately. Before buying anything, check whether your team is actually using the basic version well. Often the problem is habit rather than missing features.

Getting the team on board

Task tools fail when only one person uses them. Agree that all work for a given project or process goes into its plan, and that people update their own tasks rather than relying on a manager to do it for them. Start with one plan for one process that causes pain today, such as onboarding new staff, rather than moving all work at once. Show people how assigned tasks appear in To Do, how to get notifications, and how to update tasks from the Teams mobile app. Small wins, such as a month-end close with nothing forgotten, convince people faster than any training session.