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For example, use free slack to delay a task, or assign its resource to another task to help prevent the schedule from slipping. To make sure your project finishes on time, try optimizing tasks that have slack and are not on the critical path. For more information, see Show the critical path of your project and How Project schedules tasks: Behind the scenes. To build some slack into your critical path, you can change the default setting for slack in the Tasks are critical if slack is less than or equal to box on the Calculation Options tab of the Project Options dialog box ( File > Options). If a critical task is delayed, the project finish date is also delayed.
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By default and by definition, a task with zero (0) slack is considered a critical task.
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