Managing tasks can sometimes feel like juggling a thousand things at once, but with Microsoft Copilot, it’s never been easier to stay on top of it all. Today, in partnership with Microsoft, we’ll look at how you can supercharge your task management using Microsoft 365 Copilot. Let’s dive in. Here I am in my Outlook inbox, and we all spend so much time in email. In fact, over on the left-hand side, you can see that I have three emails from today, and they’re probably action items for me hidden away in those emails. Let’s see if we could use Copilot to extract some of those tasks or follow-ups. In the top right-hand corner, let’s click on the Copilot icon. This opens up the Copilot pane, and up on top, I have some suggested prompts that I could use, but I actually have my own in mind. So, let’s go all the way down to the bottom where we have this text field, and this is where I could type in my prompt. I’ll type in, do I have any action items in my unread emails today? Over on the left-hand side, here I have those three messages. They’re all unread, and they’re from today. I’ve scoped it to today, but you could also say from this week, or maybe last week, or maybe while I was away on vacation, if you even want to follow up on those. Now that I’ve finished my prompt, in the bottom right-hand corner, let’s send that to Copilot to see what comes back. And what do you know? It looks like I have three tasks from today in my inbox, one from Patti, one from Diego, and another one from Alex. One of the really neat things is Copilot reads the message and it summarizes what the action is. So here I can see a quick summary. It looks like Patti wants me to create a video teaser. And if I want to see the original message or all of the context, of course, I could go over to my inbox and find that message, or right over here, you’ll see that it includes a citation. When I click on this citation, it opens up the original message that Copilot based its response on. So here I could read the original request from Patti. And over here from Diego, I can click on this citation and there too, I can also see the original message. Of course, I can see all of my different action items right here, and it’s good to know what all of them are. But to make sure I actually complete them, I probably want to add them to a to-do list or some type of tracker. Over on the left-hand side, where I have all of my different emails, when I hover over, you’ll notice that there’s a flag. Let me flag this message. When I click on this, this is now highlighted. One of the really neat things over on the left-hand side, I can now click into the To Do app. Let’s click into that. This drops me into Microsoft To Do, and here I can keep track of all of my different tasks. Right over here on the left-hand side navigation, there’s a category for flagged email. And when I click on this, here I can see all of my different flagged emails. And there’s that one email that I just flagged from Diego, request for website updates. If I click into that task over on the right-hand side, here I could configure all sorts of different options related to this task. For example, I could add a due date. Here I could pick a category. I could even add additional files. Down at the bottom, I can also reference the source email. And if I’d like to read more of the details, here I could click on open, and that too also opens up the original source email. Here, I’ll close out of this. I think I’d actually like to track all of these tasks from my email today in a table, so let’s see if we could do that. In the top right-hand corner, I’ll click on the Copilot icon again, and here I can see my previous interaction with Copilot. Down below in the text field, let me try something else. Let’s convert these tasks into a table. Here, I’ll click on send. It’s now generated a table. And let me actually expand it so we could see it a little bit better. Right up on top, I’ll click on this icon. That expands the pane. And here it’s made a table that summarizes all of my action items. In the first column, I have the sender. So, there I have my three different people, Patti, Diego, and Alex. Then I have the action item, as well as any deadline that’s mentioned in the message. So just like this, I could also use this table to track all of my different follow-ups and action items. Next up, let’s see how Copilot can help us manage tasks directly in Microsoft Teams. Here I am now in Microsoft Teams, and conversations in Teams are full of important action items. I’m currently in a chat, but you could also use this in a channel that’s part of a team. Here, I have a conversation with Diego and Patti, and I want to know what are all of the different action items from this conversation? Just like we saw in email, in the top right-hand corner, we have a Copilot icon. I’ll click on this, and that opens up the Copilot pane over on the right-hand side. Here, I have a text field and I can now type in my prompt. I’ll type in extract all action items from this chat, and let’s see what comes back. Right up above, I can see that there are two follow-ups from this conversation. I’ll have to make sure to get that done. You can also use Copilot in Teams and channels, just like you can in a chat. Of course, lots of different action items and follow-ups come up in meetings. So next, let’s click into the calendar and this opens up my calendar view, and it looks like I actually already have a meeting in progress related to food safety and compliance, so let me join this meeting. I’m now in the meeting with both Patti and Diego, and we’ve discussed a number of different topics. At the very beginning of the meeting, we clicked on the Copilot icon and we had to turn on a transcript, and we’ve been using that throughout the entire meeting. Because we had the transcript and Copilot turned on, over on the right-hand side, I can now interact with and ask questions to Copilot. Now we’re wrapping up the meeting and I want to make sure that we’ve captured all of the action items from this meeting. Down below in the text field, I’ll type in my prompt, what open action items are there? And let’s send that. Above, I can now see a list of all the different tasks that came up during this meeting. Here, I see that there’s a task related to allergen labeling update, and it gives me a summary of what that task is. But I can also reference the original transcript where we talked about this action. Underneath this, and similar to what we saw in email, if you hover over the citation, here I can see the actual portion of the transcript where we talked about this task. It looks like I brought this item up. If I go down a little bit, here we talk about a supplier check being needed. I’ll hover over the citation. And here, Diego talks about it. And if I go down a little bit more on number three, here Patti brought up the need for more staff training. I now have everything that I need from this meeting. I think we’ve captured all the different tasks. Up on top, I will now leave this meeting. Although the meeting is now over, I can always go back to the AI transcript and I can continue asking questions about the meeting. Here’s that meeting on food safety and compliance. I’ll click into this and right up above, I have the option to click into a recap. When I do that, down below, here I could click on transcript and I could review the AI generated transcript of this meeting. And it even breaks it out by speaker. So that way I can review what Diego said and also what Patti said. Over on the right-hand side, here I have the Copilot icon, and when I click on that, that opens up the Copilot pane. And here I can see all previous interactions with Copilot and there are all those different action items. This way we won’t miss any of them. Up to this point, we’ve mainly looked at how you can extract tasks from emails and Outlook and conversations in Microsoft Teams. But you can also use Copilot to come up with entirely new actions and also project plans. I’m in a brand-new Microsoft Word document and I’m on point to come up with a project plan. Right here in line, I have the Copilot icon. I’ll click on that and this opens up a text field where I can type in my prompt. I’ll enter in my prompt, give me a list of actions to bake the largest chocolate chip cookie in the world. At the Kevin Cookie Company, we believe that will drive a significant amount of publicity. Now that I’ve typed in my prompt, let’s click on generate. This has now generated an entire project plan to bake the world’s largest chocolate chip cookie. It looks like we start with some planning and preparation and we have to source the ingredients, the equipment, and there are a lot of different steps involved. This will be a complex project, but it’s not quite the format that I want it in. I’d rather have it as a table. Down below, I have this field and I can make additional refinements. So over here, I’ll type in, turn this into a table with the section, task, owner, and also due date. And let’s send that. It’s now generated a table with a high-level plan of how we make this a reality. Here I see the section, each individual task. I also see the owner. I took a best guess at what team is on point for making this happen. And here it’s also estimated a due date for when this task has to be completed. Now, of course, this is the best guess and not everything will be 100% accurate, but it gives me a really good starting point. I’ll probably have to go in and I’ll have to modify the owner as well as some of the due dates. But again, I’m off to a great start. I want to collaborate with other teams on this project plan. And for some dynamic collaboration, I think Microsoft Loop would work really well. Over here, I’ll select this entire table and then copy it by pressing Control C. Then I’ll head over to Microsoft Loop. I’m now in Microsoft Loop, and if you’ve never heard of Loop before, check out the video up above in the top right-hand corner, and I’ve also included a link down below in the description. And then I’ll give you an overview of why and also when you might want to use Loop. On this page, here I’ll paste in the table that I copied from Word. And here I see that project plan to bake the world’s largest chocolate chip cookie. Within Loop, I can continue interfacing with the Copilot. In the top right-hand corner, I’ll click on the Copilot icon. This opens up the Copilot pane. And down below, I’ll type in a question. How many tasks does the baking team have? I want to make sure that we don’t overload them with too many tasks. Let’s send that. Up above, I can see all of the tasks that are currently assigned to the baking team, and it looks like they have five different steps that they’ll need to complete. There’s quite a bit on their plate. I now want to share this project plan with the broader team so we can all keep it up to date. And this is where the magic of Loop comes in. Every time this table’s updated, it’ll stay up to date for everyone, irrespective of where it’s shared. To do that, up in the top left-hand corner, let’s click on these dots and then create a Loop component. It’s now turned this into a Loop component, and if I scroll up just a little bit, here I have the option to copy this component. Let’s click on copy. And here, I can see that it’s now been copied. Let me now go to my email. I’m now in Microsoft Outlook, and here, I’ll paste in that Loop component. So, I’ll press Ctrl-V and that pastes it in. And when I say component, I’m really just pasting in that table from the Loop page. Here, I see my table. Now you might be wondering, okay, so you paste it in the table. What’s magical about that? Let’s go back into Microsoft Loop, and here, I see that same table. But for this first step, it says that the research team is on point. At the Kevin Cookie Company, we’re not that big of a company. We don’t have a research team. It’s me. So, I’ll type in my name. Now I updated this in the original Loop page. Let’s now go back to the email, and when we look at the table in the email, you’ll notice that it’s also updated it to reflect that I am now the owner. Even if I send out the email, if anyone comes in and makes updates to this table, everyone will automatically see that update. So, we don’t have to send emails back and forth every time someone comes in and makes an update to this table. That way, we’ll never have an outdated task list again. This is truly magical. With Microsoft Copilot, managing tasks has never been easier across all the apps we use every day. For us here at the Kevin Cookie Company, we’ve been loving Copilot. Almost as much as we love our chocolate chip cookies. To get inspiration for prompts, be sure to check out the Copilot lab made by Microsoft. You can click on the card right up above. You’ll find guides to writing powerful prompts, as well as several prompt examples. And for those of you looking to really master Copilot, be sure to visit the Microsoft 365 Copilot training. You can click on the card right up above. These are training courses catered specifically to different roles and functions like HR, finance, executives, operations, sales, IT, and marketing. There, you can find webinars and other training events that will help make the most out of Copilot in your everyday work. Best of all, they’re completely free and they go on all the time. So, you’ll likely find one that suits your level, need, and also schedule. To watch more videos like this one, please consider subscribing and I’ll see you in the next video.