Productivity Tip - Save yourself from the email flood!

14th February 2006

How often are you bombarded by emails, with your In-Box filling up faster than you can even reply? Item after item seems to take priority throughout the day, and you’re lucky to even read all your email, much less act on it or reply to it, right?

Well try this tip to give yourself some breathing room…

Set your Email program to STOP retrieving messages automatically, and you’ll be amazed at how much more you’ll get done.

At the start of each day, I open my Outlook, and go through the emails in my in-box, looking for anything I’ve neglected to act upon. Only after I’m ready do I hit the “Send and Receive” button, bringing forth my flood of email.

Personally, I take this time to also file any “keepers” in folders, so my in box doesn’t grow to overwhelming proportions.

In doing so, I’m able to quickly identify anything new or urgent before settling down to my routine. Since I have to hit the “Send and Receive” button again before I’m bothered, I can keep things cleaned up, and react to emails on my own schedule, instead of being at the mercy of anyone elses timetable.

By default, Outlook Express and Outlook will automatically check mail every 5 minutes. To change or disable this annoyance, here’s the instructions…

Outlook Express -

Tools > Options > General Tab
UNcheck the box for “send and receive messages at startup”
UNcheck the box for “check for new messages every X minutes”

In Outlook -

Tools > Options > Mail Setup Tab
Second Section - hit Send / Receive button