GTD with Microsoft To Do
Microsoft To Do is a free download, it is built into Outlook, and My Day gives you an empty list each morning to plan the day in. It is a harder place to run Getting Things Done, because the method needs more than lists, hashtags and a plan for today.
You do not have to choose. Relay connects to Microsoft To Do, so you can keep capturing where you already do and run the system itself in an app built for it.
What GTD needs that To Do leaves to you
| GTD needs | In Microsoft To Do |
|---|---|
| Contexts | Hashtags typed into a task's name, such as #calls. Selecting one shows every task that has it, across all your lists. |
| Projects with an outcome | A list, or a task broken into steps, can stand in. Writing down the outcome and checking each project still has a next action is up to you. |
| Waiting For | A list or a #waiting tag, with who you are waiting on and since when typed into the task yourself. |
| Someday/Maybe | Another list, sitting beside the live ones. |
| Weekly review | A task set to repeat weekly can remind you. Working through the lists is up to you. |
| Energy and time | More hashtags, such as #low or #quick, added by hand to every task. |
None of that is a fault in To Do. It is built for lists and for planning a day, and it does both. The trouble starts when you try to make lists and hashtags carry a whole method, and the upkeep starts costing more time than it saves.
Keep To Do for capture
Connect Microsoft To Do in Relay and tick the lists to bring in. From then on:
- Open tasks from those lists arrive in your Relay Inbox, to be clarified like anything else you capture. Nothing is filed for you. Each one carries the To Do icon, which opens To Do on the web.
- Relay brings across each task's title, note and due date. The due date is offered as the task's scheduled date while you process it. It is only used if you keep it.
- Complete one of those tasks in Relay, or change its title, note or scheduled date, and the change is written back to To Do. Complete it in To Do and it completes in Relay. When both sides have changed, the later edit wins.
- Relay checks your lists every 30 minutes, and again when you open the Inbox, so changes arrive without you pressing anything.
- Relay never creates tasks in To Do, and never deletes anything there.
So the task you typed into To Do on your phone shows up in your Inbox, gets a context and a project in Relay, and when you tick it off, it is ticked off in To Do and in Outlook too.
What Relay adds
- Contexts that filter Next Actions to what you can do where you are, with energy and time on every action. How contexts work.
- Projects with an outcome, and a Stalled group for any project with no next action. A sequential project shows its next step only once the one before it is done.
- Waiting For with the person and the date, Someday/Maybe, Agenda lists per person, and Reference.
- A guided weekly review that runs the steps in order, and a five-minute daily review.
- Projects linked up to areas, goals, vision and purpose, the horizons of focus.
- Outlook Calendar beside your actions, if you connect it, so Engage shows today's events above what you could do next.
Worth knowing first
- New tasks you make in Relay stay in Relay
- To Do is a way in, not a mirror. If you want a task to appear in To Do or Outlook, add it in To Do and let it come across.
- Some details stay in To Do
- Relay reads a task's title, note, due date and whether it is done. Steps, reminders, repeats, categories and the importance star are not brought across.
- Deleting does not cross over
- Delete a task in To Do and its Relay copy stays, because Relay cannot tell a deleted task from one moved to a list you do not sync. Delete the Relay copy and the To Do task is left alone.
- To Do is asked for on its own
- Connecting To Do asks Microsoft for your tasks and nothing else. Outlook Calendar is a separate connection, and disconnecting To Do in Settings leaves it working. The connection is also separate from how you sign in to Relay, so it works whichever way you sign in, with whichever Microsoft account holds your lists.
- Work and school accounts
- Some organisations need an admin to approve an app before a work account can connect it. If yours does, Relay tells you, and you can connect again once it is approved.
Where To Do is the better tool
- Price
- To Do is a free download and works with any personal Microsoft account. Relay is a subscription: €8 a month, or €5 a month billed yearly, with a 30-day trial that needs no card.
- Outlook
- To Do is built into Outlook. Your tasks appear in Outlook automatically, and My Day can sit beside your mail and calendar. With a mailbox hosted by Microsoft, emails you flag can appear as tasks in To Do's Flagged email list.
- Shared lists
- A To Do list can be shared with an invitation link, between personal Microsoft accounts or within the same work or school. Relay is a system for one person and has no shared lists.
- Planning one day
- My Day starts empty each morning, and anything you did not finish is suggested to you the next day.
- Age
- Relay is a young app, released in 2026.
If a daily plan, a few shared lists and your flagged emails cover what you need, stay with To Do on its own. Relay is for when you want contexts, projects with outcomes and a weekly review, without building them out of hashtags.
Connect Microsoft To Do to Relay
Sign in, open Settings, then Integrations, and connect Microsoft To Do. Your first list is ticked to start with. Tick any others under Lists to sync, then open the Inbox.
30 days free, no card needed. Start in your browser or install the app.
Relay runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android and Windows, and in any browser. To weigh it against other apps, see Compare GTD apps.
Related
Sources, checked 8 October 2026: Microsoft To Do system requirements, Microsoft To Do on the Microsoft Store, Welcome to Microsoft To Do, Plan and connect with Microsoft To Do, Add steps, importance, notes, tags, and categories to your tasks, Add due dates and reminders in Microsoft To Do, Create and share lists, Using Microsoft To Do with flagged email from Outlook, Manage tasks with To Do in Outlook. Microsoft To Do and Outlook are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies, which is not affiliated with Relay.