Easy Outlook Date Calculations

No more counting! No more counting! No more counting!

If you happened to be walking by my office door a few minutes ago you may have heard this cheer, followed by my clumsily tripping over a bankers box full of papers.  OK, I didn't actually do a cheer (I did trip over the box though), but I was excited enough that I felt like doing one.

I just discovered a drop-dead simple way of setting future reminders in Outlook (ex, 30 days 'discovery responses due'). 

1. Create a new appointment in your Outlook Calendar like you would anything else;
2. Give it a subject;
3.  For the "Start Time" use a plain text description of what you want to do.  It recognizes all sorts of text strings here's a few that I've tested and work for sure in Outlook 2003
• "30 days after today" 
• "45 days after tomorrow" 
• "3 days before June 25th"  (a/k/a The "if-you-haven't-bought-an-anniversary-present-yet-drive -immediately-to-a-jewelry-store-you-idiot" reminder)
  
• "two weeks after today"
•  unfortunately it doesn't seem to recognize "weekdays" or "business days" for the sub-11 day time periods.
  
4. Hit "Tab" and then save the appointment.
   

This is going to be an extremely helpful little trick to help you stay on top of future due dates