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# Microsoft Planner vs. Microsoft To Do: Which One Should You Use?
- URL: https://seanshares.com/microsoft-planner-vs-to-do/
- Published: 2026-10-30T21:15:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-30T21:15:00.000Z
- Description: Planner and To Do both manage tasks, but they solve different problems. Here's when to use each one, what premium adds, and how to use them together.
- Author: Sean Shares
- Tags: M365

Microsoft gives you a lot of ways to create a task, and the line between them isn't always obvious. You can flag an email in Outlook and it shows up as a task. You can make a personal list in Microsoft To Do. You can assign work to someone in Microsoft Planner. And if you open Planner in Teams, you'll see personal tasks, flagged emails and team assignments all in one place.

Here's the short version. Use To Do for work that belongs to you. Use Planner for work a team needs to see, assign and track. For most people the best setup is both, and once you see how they connect, the choice gets a lot easier.

"Should I use Planner or To Do?" is one of the most common Microsoft 365 questions I hear, usually right after someone finds the same task showing up in two places. Microsoft's own [guidance](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/todo/to-do-vs-planner?ref=seanshares.com) is simple: start with To Do for individual tasks or shared lists, and use Planner when you're working with a team. That's accurate, but it doesn't cover the gray areas you hit in a normal week. Shared To Do lists can have more than one person on them. Planner tasks assigned to you show up in your personal views. And the newer Planner app pulls personal and team work closer together than it used to.

This guide walks through where each tool fits, what's actually different, how they work together, and what to settle before your team ends up with tasks scattered across three apps.

## The Short Answer

If you only need a rule of thumb, use this one:

- Use To Do when the task mainly belongs to you.
- Use Planner when the task needs to be visible, assigned, discussed or tracked by a team.
- Use both when the team manages shared work in Planner but each person still needs a personal view of what to work on today.

A task like "renew my certification" belongs in To Do. It's yours, you're responsible for it, and nobody needs a board showing whether it's in progress.

A task like "review the new employee onboarding docs" belongs in Planner if it's part of an onboarding project, assigned to a specific person, tied to a deadline and something the rest of the team needs to see.

The deciding factor isn't whether a task is work related. It's whether the task needs shared visibility and coordination.

## What Is Microsoft To Do?

Microsoft To Do is Microsoft's personal task app. It runs on the web, Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android, and it's built into Outlook too. Its job is to give you one place to capture, sort and finish your own tasks.

Along with the lists you create yourself, To Do has a set of smart lists:

- **My Day**
- **Important**
- **Planned**
- **Assigned to me**
- **Flagged email**
- **Tasks** (the default list)

Here's what that looks like in To Do on the web. The smart lists sit down the left side, and **Assigned to me** is showing two tasks from a Planner plan. Notice the plan name under each task, which tells you exactly where it came from.

![Microsoft To Do with the smart lists highlighted on the left and the Assigned to me list showing two Planner tasks labeled with their source plan](https://seanshares.com/content/images/2026/10/todo-assigned-to-me.png)

My Day is the part I'd point most people to first. You build a short list of what you plan to finish today without moving those tasks out of their original lists. My Day clears each night, but anything you didn't finish stays in its home list, and To Do will suggest it again tomorrow along with tasks that are due soon.

To Do is also tied closely to Outlook. Your tasks are stored in Exchange Online, so they show up in both apps. If you flag an email in your primary mailbox, it can appear in the **Flagged email** list with a link back to the original message. From there you can add a due date, a reminder or drop it into My Day.

That makes To Do especially handy if a lot of your work arrives by email. Instead of leaving a message unread and hoping you remember it, you flag it and treat it like any other task.

## When Microsoft To Do Is the Better Choice

To Do works best when you're managing your own attention, not a project for a group.

### Planning Your Day

If the question in your head is "What do I need to get done today?", To Do is usually the better app. Open My Day in the morning, check the suggestions and pick a realistic handful of tasks. They can come from your own lists, from Planner assignments or from flagged emails, so you don't have to open every plan or dig through your inbox to build the list.

Planner can tell you what work exists inside a plan. To Do helps you decide which pieces of it get your attention today.

### Capturing Tasks Quickly

To Do is also better for catching a thought before it disappears. You don't need to create a plan, pick a bucket or decide who should have access. Type the task and keep moving. Good examples:

- Follow up with the licensing vendor
- Review next month's maintenance window
- Update my certification transcript
- Order replacement laptop chargers
- Read the documentation someone sent me

Some of these might grow into a bigger project later, but they don't need that structure the moment you write them down.

### Following Up on Outlook Email

Tracking email that needs action is one of the best uses for To Do, whether you flag messages by hand or set up [rules in Outlook](https://seanshares.com/how-to-create-and-manage-rules-in-outlook/) to flag them for you.

Microsoft [notes](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/todo/using-microsoft-to-do-with-flagged-email-from-outlook?ref=seanshares.com) that this only works for messages in your primary mailbox. Flagged messages in shared mailboxes or shared folders won't show up.

Here's the workflow I recommend:

1. Read the email in Outlook.
2. If you can handle it in a couple of minutes, do it now.
3. If it needs work later, flag it.
4. In To Do, give it a due date or reminder.
5. Add it to My Day when you're ready to work on it.
6. Mark it complete once the email is handled.

That's far more reliable than using unread status as a to-do list. For more ways to keep your inbox in check, see my [tips for smarter Outlook email management](https://seanshares.com/tips-in-outlook-for-smarter-email-management/).

### Recurring Personal Work

To Do is a good home for repeating work that belongs to one person:

- Check Microsoft 365 service health every Monday
- Submit a timesheet every other Friday
- Check for expiring certificates once a month
- Prepare a weekly update for your manager

To Do supports recurring due dates, reminders, steps, notes, files and importance. If you want to go further with recurrence, smart dates and flagged email, my [Microsoft To Do tips](https://seanshares.com/microsoft-to-do-tips-smart-dates-automation-recurrence-flagged-emails/) post covers those in detail.

### Private Tasks

Not every work task needs an audience. Prepping for a performance review, organizing notes for a tough meeting or remembering to ask your manager something are all work related, but they're still personal reminders. A private To Do list fits those much better than a shared Planner board.

## What Is Microsoft Planner?

Microsoft Planner is Microsoft's team work management app. It's built for plans where several people need to create, assign, organize and track tasks.

In a basic plan, your team sorts tasks into buckets, assigns them to people, sets start and due dates, adds labels, checklists and attachments, and then looks at the work through the **Grid**, **Board**, **Calendar** and **Charts** views. You can filter and group tasks by assignee, due date, progress, priority, bucket and more.

One thing to watch for: Microsoft's comparison page still calls the calendar-style view "Schedule view," but in the current Planner app the button just says **Calendar**. Same feature, different label.

![Microsoft Planner Board view with Backlog, Up next, In progress and Blocked buckets, with the Grid, Board, Calendar and Charts view buttons highlighted](https://seanshares.com/content/images/2026/10/planner-board-view.png)

Planner runs on the web and inside Microsoft Teams, so a team can keep a plan right next to the chats, meetings and files that go with the work.

The current Planner app is also bigger than the original one. Microsoft describes it as a single home for personal tasks, team plans, capabilities that used to belong to Project for the web, and Copilot. The Planner app in Teams used to be called Tasks by Planner and To Do, which tells you a lot about where Microsoft is heading.

## When Microsoft Planner Is the Better Choice

Planner wins once work needs shared ownership, visibility or reporting.

### Coordinating Work Across a Team

When several people are working toward the same outcome, Planner gives them one shared source of truth. Say your team is rolling out a new Teams policy. The work might look like this:

- Review the current configuration
- Identify affected users
- Create a test policy and assign it to a pilot group
- Collect pilot feedback
- Update internal documentation
- Give the service desk a heads up
- Roll out to everyone and watch support tickets

Those tasks have different owners and move at different speeds. A private list can't give the group that visibility. In Planner, everyone with access can see who owns what, what's done and where things are slipping.

### Tracking Ownership

Assignment is central to Planner. Every task shows who's responsible, you can filter or group by assignee, and each person sees their assignments in their own task views. Microsoft's [My Tasks documentation](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/planner/training/manage-your-tasks-with-my-tasks-and-my-day?ref=seanshares.com) explains that My Tasks pulls together assignments from basic plans, premium plans, Teams meeting notes, Loop task lists and shared To Do lists.

That answers the question that comes up in almost every team project: "Who's actually handling this?"

### Creating a Visual Workflow

Board view works as a simple Kanban board. Buckets can stand for almost anything:

- Status: backlog, up next, in progress, blocked
- Phases: planning, testing, pilot, production
- Departments or clients
- Types of requests
- Steps in an onboarding process
- Content stages: ideas, drafting, review, published

There's no single right way to set up buckets. What matters is that everyone on the team understands what the board represents. And since Planner has filters and grouping, buckets don't have to carry every bit of organization on their own.

### Reporting Progress

To Do tells you what you need to finish. It isn't built to show a manager the state of a team project. Planner's **Charts** view and shared plan views help answer questions like:

- How many tasks are done?
- What hasn't started yet?
- What's late?
- Who has the most work assigned?
- Which bucket has the most open work?

It won't replace a real reporting tool, but it's plenty for team meetings, weekly reviews and smaller projects where a full project management system would be overkill.

### Planner Premium for Structured Projects

Basic Planner handles simple task coordination well. When a project needs more structure, premium plans add a lot. According to Microsoft's [basic vs. premium comparison](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/planner/compare-microsoft-planner-basic-vs-premium-plans?ref=seanshares.com), premium plans add:

- Timeline view (a Gantt-style chart)
- Task dependencies and milestones
- Critical path
- Custom fields with conditional coloring
- Sprints and backlogs
- People view for workload
- Goals
- Custom calendars
- Colored buckets
- Task history
- Copilot in Planner

Premium isn't just basic with extra buttons, though. Some features are only in basic plans right now, including the Calendar (Schedule) view, Outlook calendar integration, the SharePoint web part, the Tasks app in Teams mobile, recurring tasks and adding plans to Loop. There's also a size difference: a basic plan can hold up to 9,000 tasks, while a premium plan tops out at 3,000.

My take: if your team only needs to assign tasks and track completion, basic Planner is enough. Once people start asking about dependencies, workload balancing, timelines or a critical path, it's time to look at premium.

### What About Copilot in Basic Plans?

Copilot in Planner has been a premium feature, but that's starting to change. As of August 2026, Microsoft has started bringing the Planner Agent to basic group plans for people who have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Like most Microsoft 365 changes, it's rolling out gradually, so it may not show up in every tenant yet. If you don't see it, check again in a few weeks before assuming you need a premium license.

## Microsoft Planner vs. Microsoft To Do: Key Differences

The biggest difference is who the task is for.

### To Do Is Personal First

To Do starts with you. Its lists answer questions like:

- What do I need to remember?
- What am I doing today?
- Which emails need a follow-up?
- What's due soon?

You can share a To Do list and assign tasks to people on it, so it's not limited to private work. But sharing is deliberately light. Microsoft positions shared To Do lists for working with teammates, friends or family, and Planner as the place to organize team work visually.

### Planner Is Team First

Planner starts with the plan and the people working on it. Its views answer different questions:

- What does the team need to finish?
- Who owns each item?
- What's in progress right now?
- What's late?
- Is the workload spread fairly?

The task lives in a shared plan, not just in one person's list.

### Lists Versus Plans, Buckets and Views

To Do organizes everything with lists and smart lists. It's simple and fast. You can make a list for work, home, a project or a certification, and the smart lists pull tasks together by due date, importance, assignment or flagged email.

Planner adds more structure. Tasks live in plans, plans have buckets, and you switch between Grid, Board, Calendar and Charts depending on what you need to see. Premium plans add Timeline, People and more on top of that.

### Today Versus the Whole Project

My Day is built to help one person focus on now. Adding a Planner task to My Day doesn't move it out of its plan. It stays connected to its source plan, and any updates sync both ways, so you can focus on today without breaking the team's structure.

Planner is about the bigger picture: upcoming work, overdue work, completed tasks and assignments across the whole team.

## How Planner and To Do Work Together

The two apps work best when you stop thinking of them as competitors.

Your team manages shared work in Planner. When a task gets assigned to you, it shows up in **Assigned to me** in To Do and in **My tasks** in Planner. You can add it to My Day so it sits right next to your personal tasks. The task still belongs to the plan. You're just looking at it through your own lens.

In the Planner app, **My tasks** has filters for **All**, **Private tasks**, **Assigned to me** and **Flagged emails**. The **Source** column shows where each task came from. In the screenshot below, two tasks come from a team plan and the others are private tasks that live in To Do, all in one list.

![Planner My tasks in Grid view with the All, Private tasks, Assigned to me and Flagged emails filters highlighted, and the Source column showing tasks from a team plan and from private tasks](https://seanshares.com/content/images/2026/10/planner-my-tasks.png)

A practical daily workflow looks like this:

1. The team creates and assigns project work in Planner.
2. Your assignments show up in Assigned to me and My tasks.
3. At the start of the day, you review what's on your plate.
4. You add the most important items to My Day.
5. You work through them from your personal view.
6. Progress stays connected to the original plan.
7. The team keeps using Planner for the big picture.

Managers get the visibility they need, and nobody has to click through five plans every morning to figure out what to do first.

## Can You Use To Do for Team Tasks?

Yes, within limits. You can share a To Do list and assign tasks to anyone who has access to it. That works well for:

- A small shared checklist
- A two-person admin list
- A recurring opening or closing checklist
- A short event prep list
- Household tasks

The trouble starts when the group wants stages, reporting, filters, workload views or anything that looks like formal project tracking. That's when Planner makes more sense.

A quick test I use: will this list come up in a status meeting? If the group needs to talk through progress, owners, overdue work and blockers, put it in Planner.

## Can You Use Planner for Personal Tasks?

You can, but it's often more than you need.

Some people build a private plan and use buckets for their own work. That can be worth it if you really like a visual board, or if your solo work has enough moving pieces. Someone studying for several certification exams might use buckets for research, training, labs, practice exams, scheduled exams and completed certs. That's a perfectly good use of Planner.

For everyday reminders, though, To Do is faster. Building a whole plan for "submit expense report" adds structure the task doesn't need. And the new Planner app already has **My tasks** and **My day** for personal work, so you get a lot of Planner's look without creating a plan just for yourself.

## Real-World Examples

Features only go so far. Here's how I'd handle some everyday situations.

### Following Up with a Vendor

You need to call a vendor next Tuesday for an updated quote. Use To Do. It's yours, nobody else needs to track it, and a reminder matters more than a board.

### Rolling Out a New Microsoft 365 Feature

Your team needs to test a feature, update policies, document the change, notify users and watch the rollout. Use Planner. The work has several owners, multiple stages and deadlines the whole team needs to see.

### Studying for a Certification Exam

You need to finish learning modules, take practice tests and book the exam. Use To Do for a personal checklist, or Planner if you want a board with phases or you're part of a study group.

### An Email That Needs Action by Friday

Someone asks you to review a document by Friday. Flag it and manage it in To Do. Add a due date and drop it into My Day when you're ready. The task keeps a link back to the original email.

### Employee Onboarding

Several departments need to prep hardware, create accounts, assign training and check access. Use Planner. A shared plan shows who owns each step and gives the onboarding coordinator one place to see what's left.

### A Shared Weekly Checklist

Two people run the same short checklist every Friday. A shared To Do list is probably enough. If it grows into a full process with multiple teams and progress reviews, move it to Planner.

## Common Mistakes to Avoid

### A Planner Plan for Every Small Reminder

Too many plans turn into clutter fast. If a task only concerns you and doesn't need shared reporting, keep it in To Do.

### Running a Full Team Project from a Shared To Do List

Shared To Do lists are convenient, but they get hard to manage as tasks and people pile up. Move to Planner once the team needs real visibility.

### Duplicating the Same Task in Both Apps

This is the biggest mistake I see. Someone creates a task in Planner, then creates a copy in To Do so they'll remember it. Now there are two records that can drift apart. Use Assigned to me and My Day instead. The task stays linked to its plan, and finishing it in one place finishes it everywhere.

### Relying Only on Due Dates

A due date tells you when something should be done. It doesn't tell you why the task exists or how it relates to other work. In To Do, use lists, steps, reminders and importance. In Planner, use buckets, assignments, labels, progress, descriptions and checklists.

### Putting Private Notes in a Shared Plan

Planner is a team space. Treat task notes, attachments and conversations as things other plan members can read. Microsoft has also changed how [Planner task comments](https://seanshares.com/what-happened-to-planner-task-comments/) work, so check the current behavior before relying on them. Keep private prep and sensitive notes in a personal list or another approved spot.

## What You Need License-Wise

The good news is that most people already have both apps.

- To Do comes with Microsoft 365 work and school accounts that include Exchange Online, and it's free with a personal Microsoft account.
- Basic Planner is included with Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard and Business Premium, Office 365 E1, E3 and E5, Microsoft 365 E3 and E5, and education plans like A1.
- Planner premium features need a Planner Plan 1 license (formerly Project Plan 1), or Planner and Project Plan 3 or Plan 5.

For admins, the main thing to check is that the Planner service plan hasn't been turned off on users' licenses. If someone can't create a plan, that's usually the first place to look. Microsoft's [Planner for admins](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/planner/planner-for-admins?ref=seanshares.com) page is the best starting point for the admin side.

## A Simple Decision Checklist

### Choose To Do When:

- The task mainly belongs to you
- You need a quick reminder
- You want a daily focus list
- You're following up on an Outlook email
- The task is private
- It's a recurring personal responsibility
- A basic shared checklist is enough

### Choose Planner When:

- Several people are working toward the same outcome
- Tasks need clear owners
- The team needs shared visibility or a visual board
- The work has phases or stages
- You need charts or progress views
- The plan belongs in a Teams channel
- You need dependencies, timelines or other project features

### Choose Both When:

- Shared work is managed in Planner
- People also keep their own personal tasks
- People want assigned work and flagged emails in one place
- Everyone uses My Day to choose daily priorities

## Setting a Standard for Your Organization

For most organizations, the answer isn't "Planner or To Do." It's writing down when to use each one. A simple internal standard might be:

- To Do for personal reminders, email follow-ups and daily planning
- Planner for shared team work, projects and processes
- Assign Planner tasks to the person who will actually do them
- Manage assigned work through My tasks, Assigned to me or My Day
- Never copy tasks between the two by hand
- Use Planner premium only when a project really needs it

A short standard like this does more good than telling everyone to use one app for everything. Tasks start in different places. Some begin as an email, some come from a team project, and some are just a thought you had in the hallway. The goal is to make those entry points easy to understand, not to force every kind of work into one structure.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Can Planner tasks show up in Microsoft To Do?

Yes. Planner tasks assigned to you appear in the Assigned to me list in To Do and in My tasks in Planner. You can add them to My Day, and changes sync back to the original plan.

### Can a team use Microsoft To Do?

Yes. You can share a To Do list and assign tasks to its members. It works well for small, simple checklists. Once you need stages, reporting or workload views, Planner is the better fit.

### Is Microsoft Planner included with Microsoft 365?

Basic Planner is included with most Microsoft 365 business, enterprise and education plans, including Business Basic, Standard and Premium and E1, E3 and E5\. Premium features need Planner Plan 1 or Planner and Project Plan 3 or 5.

### What's the difference between a basic and a premium plan?

Both have Grid, Board and Charts views, filtering, task conversations and export to Excel. Premium adds Timeline, dependencies, milestones, critical path, custom fields, sprints, goals, People view, task history and Copilot. Basic keeps a few things premium doesn't have, like the Calendar view, recurring tasks and Outlook calendar integration.

### What is My Day?

My Day is a daily focus list in both To Do and Planner. You add tasks from any list or plan, and they stay connected to where they came from. The list clears each night so you can pick fresh priorities the next morning.

## Final Thoughts

Planner and To Do overlap, but they aren't interchangeable. To Do is for your own attention: daily priorities, email follow-ups, recurring reminders and light shared lists. Planner is for the team: shared projects, clear owners, visual workflows and progress tracking, with premium adding timelines, dependencies and sprints when a project needs them.

Most people get the best results using both. The team plans the work in Planner, and each person picks their assignments into My Day right alongside their own tasks and flagged emails. Once you think of Planner as where shared work lives and To Do as where you decide what to do today, the question mostly answers itself.

*Sources:* [*To Do vs. Planner*](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/todo/to-do-vs-planner?ref=seanshares.com)*,* [*Compare Microsoft Planner basic vs. premium plans*](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/planner/compare-microsoft-planner-basic-vs-premium-plans?ref=seanshares.com)*,* [*Advanced capabilities with premium plans in Planner*](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/planner/teams/advanced-capabilities-with-premium-plans-in-planner?ref=seanshares.com)*,* [*Manage your tasks with My Tasks and My Day*](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/planner/training/manage-your-tasks-with-my-tasks-and-my-day?ref=seanshares.com)*,* [*Using Microsoft To Do with flagged email from Outlook*](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/todo/using-microsoft-to-do-with-flagged-email-from-outlook?ref=seanshares.com)*,* [*Planner for admins*](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/planner/planner-for-admins?ref=seanshares.com)*.*