Lazy Mail

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Have you ever sent out an email saying:
"Hey, check out the new Britney Spears video <hypothetical link/>! It's HOT HOT HOT!"

Only instead of sending the mail to your buddy Alan, you sent it to the "All Employees" alias?

Then you frantically send out a "Recall" mail, which simply attracts more attention to your original blunder than you would have gotten had you simply done nothing.

My solution (since I'm always sending out Britney Spears videos) is to use an (apparently) little know feature of Outlook.

  1. In Outlook: Tools->Options->Mail Setup Tab
  2. Uncheck the "Send immediately when connected" checkbox.
  3. Click the "Send/Receive" button
  4. Check the checkbox for "Schedule an automatic send/receive every [5] minutes"

Now I have up to 5 minutes to open my outbox and save my career. Sure, I'm not always the first person to chime in on the latest email thread, but 5 minutes won't make that much of a difference.

Besides, if you really need to respond ASAP, you can always click on the Send/Receive button on the Outlook toolbar to send immediately.

Other benefits:

  • Emails come in only once every 5 minutes, so distractions are not constant.
  • While waiting for your answer to a thread to send, someone else might have responded with the same answers. You can delete my thread and save everyone time.

Now if I could only figure out how to get Outlook to fetch my morning toast for me...