Finding My Day for the first time
The very first time I clicked on the My Day icon in Microsoft To Do, I had literally no idea what it was about. It looked like just another tab. But the second I opened it, my normal task list disappeared and suddenly I stared at an empty screen that said something like “Add tasks for today.” That empty screen felt both exciting and annoying because at first I thought my entire task list had wiped. My brain was like—great, I broke another workflow before breakfast. 🙂
So here’s the deal. Your actual tasks, the ones sitting in different lists like Work or Groceries, don’t just vanish. My Day is more like a scratch pad for what matters right now. You can pull items into it one by one, or just start typing new things that only live for that day. If you don’t finish them, they don’t stay there tomorrow. That part confused me at first because I thought it auto carried them. But nope. If you forget, they drop away. And while that sounds scary, it’s actually the point—less clutter or guilt staring at you all week long.
What tripped me initially: I kept expecting My Day to auto populate with my planned tasks. But Microsoft made it so you need to intentionally choose what shows up here. In practice that extra click turned out to be good for focus. But on day one, I was swearing at the screen because “where the heck are my tasks.”
Adding tasks from other lists
The main frustration I had was not knowing you need to click the “suggestions” panel to pull tasks into My Day. The word suggestion makes it sound like it’ll pick weird things for me. But after clicking it, I realized it actually shows overdue items, flagged emails if you’ve tied it to Outlook, and upcoming due tasks. From there you just click “Add” and boom it drops into My Day.
If you skip suggestions, you can still right click any task from your normal list and choose “Add to My Day.” I didn’t notice that menu option for over a week, so I was manually rewriting things into My Day like an idiot. That felt ridiculous but hey at least I learned the hard way.
Pro tip I wish I knew: dragging works too. Just drag from your task list into My Day. Much faster than menus if you’re like me with twenty tabs and no patience. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Once I figured this out, the feature started to click. In the morning I grab a coffee, open suggestions, scan through what actually matters, drag a few in, and then just stare at My Day until it’s all green checkmarks. And yes, the checkmark animation is the exact tiny dopamine hit my brain needs at 11 am.
The disappearing task shock
This part deserves explanation because it nearly made me rage quit the whole app. If you close out of My Day and open it again tomorrow, those tasks you didn’t tick off vanish from the My Day view. At first I thought tasks were actually *deleted*. I searched my lists and panicked when I couldn’t instantly see them. The truth is they never leave their home list. They just don’t carry forward automatically into the new My Day.
To confirm this, I actually created a test list called “Pizza experiments” and stuck a task in it: “Check oven temp.” I added it into My Day. Then I intentionally didn’t complete it that night. Next morning My Day was empty. But when I tapped my Pizza experiments list, there it was, untouched, patiently waiting. So yeah, it’s hiding, not erased.
After realizing that, it made sense. My Day is like wiping a whiteboard every morning. You choose again what matters today. Still, the first time it happened, I lost ten minutes thinking the sync ate my work.
Pairing with mobile app on the go
Switching between desktop and phone honestly showed me the strongest piece of My Day. On desktop I’ll carefully set up my plan with suggestions. Then I leave the house, check the Microsoft To Do app on my phone while standing in line for coffee, and My Day is right there with the exact focus tasks I picked. It cuts down on scrolling through long lists when you’re just trying to see the two or three things that actually matter in real life.
But there was one bug crop up. Sometimes refreshing the phone app after midnight gave me yesterday’s My Day list still showing. That was like a ghost list. I had to manually swipe down to refresh, then the new blank My Day appeared. Not a dealbreaker, just a glitch that looked spooky at first.
The sync between devices is usually quick. I tested this by adding “Buy milk” from my laptop My Day. Within seconds I opened the phone app and saw it pop in automatically. The speed feels on par with other productivity apps like Todoist or Asana, but unlike them it keeps this very tight focus on the present day instead of dashboards full of charts.
Why suggestions panel matters most
If you ignore the suggestions panel, My Day feels like a blank slate you constantly stuff tasks into. That’s fine, but Microsoft actually designed suggestions as your gentle nudge. It pulls unfinished tasks and upcoming deadlines into a single view. And honestly this is where the hidden magic is. I started using it every morning kind of like a ritual. I scroll down, look at a flagged email from Outlook that I know I’ve been dodging, sigh loudly, and then drag it into My Day so I finally do it.
Another neat trick: tasks with due dates naturally rise to the top of the suggestions view, while random someday tasks drop lower. It’s like a semi-smart filter without feeling bossy. I hate AI that tries to predict my priorities and gets them wrong. Here it just surfaces them without judgment, and I decide if it makes the cut.
So if you ever think My Day feels empty or pointless, try actually clicking suggestions and using it as step one of your morning planning. That’s when it feels different from just another list.
Ways I broke the workflow accidentally
I did hit a couple silent failures where My Day stopped working like I expected. Example one: I had tasks hidden behind filters that didn’t show up in suggestions. I kept thinking the app lost my task. In reality the filter simply kept it invisible. Once I cleared the filter, suddenly the task appeared where it belonged. Another time I set tasks with no due dates, expecting them to be suggested tomorrow. Surprise, only overdue and dated tasks appear in suggestions. So it just never appeared again unless I manually went hunting.
There was also a moment when syncing between Outlook flagged emails and My Day just froze. Emails I flagged were not showing up in suggestions. Logging out and in fixed it, but I lost trust for a while. Nothing dramatic, but when your brain is relying on the flow, a tiny sync miss looks like disaster.
If you’re testing this, remember: filters, due dates, and sync status all determine what actually shows up. It’s not broken, it’s just picky.
How I actually use it day to day
Morning routine: open To Do, tap suggestions, pick two or three big rocks, plus a couple quick errands. I drag them into My Day. Then I close every other list. I try to limit My Day to maybe five tasks max. Otherwise it turns back into a monster list and defeats the purpose.
End of day: I scan what’s left in My Day. If it’s unfinished, I either right click and add it back to My Day again for tomorrow, or I leave it alone and let it naturally fade. If it’s stupid or irrelevant now, I just delete it. That little cycle of renewal weirdly makes it feel lighter than apps that keep dumping overdue badges everywhere.
On the go: if I think of something urgent, I add it straight into My Day from the phone app. That way I don’t forget about it. If it turns out not important, tomorrow it just won’t be there and I won’t feel guilty.
It took me weeks to settle into that rhythm. Before that, every time I saw a blank My Day, I felt like the app crashed on me. Now it feels intentional. Almost like getting a fresh notebook page every morning.
Is it worth sticking with My Day
If you are someone like me with too many lists, too many windows, and more than one automation project half finished, My Day is the sanity check. The fact that it resets every morning sounded terrifying but ended up being the best part. It forced me to admit that not everything in my giant backlog matters right this second. Just because I wrote something once doesn’t mean I need to see it glaring at me every day.
Compared to other productivity tools, it can feel oversimplified at first. No graphs, no streaks, no complicated dependencies. Just today. And honestly that’s what makes it powerful in real use. I use fancy tools for project planning, but when I’m hungover on a Tuesday morning and need to pick three things to survive the day, My Day is the only screen that does not overwhelm me.
If you want to see the official app itself rather than my half panicked notes, you can grab Microsoft To Do straight from microsoft.com. But honestly, use one empty Tuesday to test it in real adult-mode—you’ll either hate the blankness or realize it’s exactly what your brain needed that morning 😛