Question

Is there any easy way in Outlook 2007/2010 to show/hide meetings in a specific category? Preferably only for a specific view (the Month view, in this case).

Note: I was almost done writing this question, adding just one more "What I've tried" option, when I found an acceptable (though imperfect) solution. Remembering this SE blog post I figured I might as well post it after all and answer it myself. And who knows, perhaps someone else has a more elegant solution.

The reason for me personally is that I'd like to hide the "small, recurring meetings" like our daily stand-up meeting in the month view. I'd prefer an Outlook feature that is meant for this (there must be one for this, right?), but I'm open to workarounds or plugin suggestions as well.

What I expected to find somewhere was a list of categories (with added option "No category") where you could select/deselect from which categories you'd see meetings. Something like this mock-up:

What I've tried

1. Edit "View Settings", and use a "Filter..." on categories. This has several disadvantages, the major one is that the filter only allows me to choose what I want to show, but not what I want to hide. Even if I tick all categories but one for the filter it would still hide any uncategorized meeting.
2. Similar to 1, but then using Advanced filters. Still a bit clumsy as changing views can be up to three clicks, but this is the best solution so far (see the corresponding answer below).
3. Creating a sub-calendar for these "small" meetings that I wish to hide. This felt a bit clumsy and like overkill, but did provide an easy "select/deselect" option to show/hide these meetings.
4. Search for plug-ins that do this. Couldn't find one (yet).