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yet another Microsoft blogger

# Friday, March 04, 2005

Take Control of E-mail

Today I decided to stop the madness. An email every few minutes and desktop alert + sound to go with it makes it to easy to lose focus on my task at hand and look at my inbox. While I loved this feature when Outlook came out, it's become my achilles heal of productivity. No more.

  1. Tools->Options
  2. Click E-mail Options...
  3. Click Advanced E-mail Options...
  4. Uncheck:
    1. Play a Sound
    2. Briefly change the mouse cursor
    3. Show an envelope in the notification area
    4. Display a New Mail Desktop Alert (default Inbox only)

I highly recommend reading The Tyranny of Email. Do email on your time.

 

Friday, March 04, 2005 7:21:57 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Bravo Omar! I know this is a difficult step to take especially inside MSFT, where so many people want to impress with how fast they answer their e-mails. But there's no way you can get serious work + thinking done with the e-mails banging in every minute.

-Scott
Saturday, March 05, 2005 10:43:46 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Or, just right-click on the Microsoft Outlook icon in your system tray and uncheck "Show New Mail Desktop Alert." It's a much easier way to do it.
-Hank
Hank Leukart
Sunday, March 06, 2005 9:56:35 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Ever since reading books by Peter Drucker, Marianne Williamson, and John-Roger in the same year, I've become more and more a "personal scientist." It's just this kind of experiment I run to see what the effects are.

In seminars, I often propose that clients do something like what you've described, just for 5 work days. Then, go back in on that 6th day, put the sound BACK, and see what happens...it's an interesting experiment!

Friday, August 12, 2005 11:19:58 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
I agree Omar allow you could take this a bit further

See Rule #19
http://www.ssw.com.au/SSW/Standards/Rules/RulesToBetterEmail.aspx#MinimiseOutlookDistractions

Adam
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