Scheduling Tasks and Appointments

Drag and Drop. To schedule a task which is already on your task list, use your mouse to drag the task overto the schedule.

Hint: The appropriate category time-block is outlined for convenience. For example, if you are dragging a task from the “study” category, then the “study” time-block will be outlined on your schedule. If you are dragging a task from the Summary tab, then the appropriate time-block will only appear outlined after you have selected a task to drag.

Hint: By default tasks which are scheduled by dragging from the task list are non-fixed (see below).

Hint: You can schedule overlapping tasks by dragging a task onto a previously scheduled task. The tasks will appear side-by-side.

Creating appointments on your calendar. To create an appointment directly on your calendar, click on the appropriate start-time on your calendar (in one or seven-day view), and drag down to increase duration (click and drag in one motion). Type the name of the appointment and press ENTER.

Hint: By default, appointments created directly on your calendar are Fixed (see below). Unscheduling. To unscheduled any task or appointment, right-click on the task (appearing on your schedule) and select Unschedule task. The task will appear on your task list its originally defined date range.

Hint: If the task had been created directly on the calendar (and so never had a defined range), then it will appear on your task list for the day that it had originally been scheduled. The category is then assumed to be the same as the time-block during which the task had been scheduled.

Fixed vs. Non-fixed. There are two types of scheduled items. Fixed appointments refer to engagements which must occur at a very specific time (doctor’s appointment, an exam...). “Non-fixed” refers to more tentatively scheduled tasks (History homework at 6pm). How can I tell? Fixed tasks have a bold-yellow checkbox and a tiny thumb-tack on the Gantt chart. In this example, only the first two items are fixed:

What’s the difference? Fixed appointments will never be rescheduled automatically by Auto Plan. Non-fixed tasks CAN be reshuffled when you run the Auto Plan.

Default Setting. Any task created directly on the schedule OR dragged onto the schedule from your task list is fixed, by default. Any task scheduled by Auto Plan is non-fixed, by default.

Changing the setting. You can change from fixed to non-fixed (and back) by right-clicking on the task (on the calendar):