Microsoft Outlook is finally catching up with productivity apps that help you plan and manage increasingly busy days, weeks, and months. To that end, Microsoft is adding two new features just announced today, one focused on planning and the other to help you schedule meetings.

In a blog post titled "Everyone Needs Extra Time," Microsoft details the following features. These features will soon be included in Outlook for "customers with commercial or educational licenses."

First up is a new feature called Outlook Calendar Board, based on the fact that the calendar is only half of the planning brain. This "board" view (accessible via the "View" button) essentially reduces the width of the calendar by half in the window and provides the option to add all sorts of other widgets to the "board."

Next to the Week view, you can pin other calendars, task lists, important Office files, sticky notes, and other items. Think of it all as a giant interactive bulletin board for your many lives.

Microsoft notes that "on average, people use six tools to keep track of everything they need to accomplish." So if you're familiar with productivity applications, Calendar Boards may be the solution you didn't know you needed so seriously.

The Calendar Board view first appears in Outlook on the Web.

Another problem Microsoft is trying to solve is the difficulty of planning meetings. In a poll conducted by Microsoft, 50% of information workers said that finding time for meetings and scheduling meetings with multiple people is the "biggest pain point of meetings."

So, to solve this, Outlook's iOS and Android apps will get the ability to suggest a time that is convenient for all invitees. If no such time is available, the app will look for a time that is convenient for all invitees and see if it is possible to reschedule the existing meeting.