Master email distractions in Outlook 2003.

Email is the killer application of the Internet; it allows near-instant communication, it allows easy group collaboration, and it’s an efficient way for the top brass of a company to keep their ear turned towards the entire enterprise.

Email is also not as distracting as a ringing phone. When someone calls you, it’s interrupting what you’re doing. When an email arrives you can usually continue working and check the message when it’s convenient for you. That’s why so many people love email, and that’s one of its greatest powers.

And Microsoft is trying to screw everything up!

A few months back our office upgraded to Outlook 2003 to go along with an Exchange upgrade. I must admit I enjoy some of the changes in Outlook 2003, but it has a new feature that really drives me crazy.

When you get an email message Outlook 2003 pops up a semi-transparent window in the lower right-hand corner of your desktop for about 7 seconds. This window contains the name of the message sender and the subject line of the message. If you put your mouse over the window it turns fully opaque and if you click on the window you’re whisked away from whatever you were doing to read the message.

If you’re like me, and that pop-up is from your boss or maybe someone with a question about an urgent project, it’s very tempting to let yourself get distracted, click the message, and jump to another task. And that makes it very tough to get productive and stay productive.

What’s the easy solution? Many productiviy gurus recommend only launching your email program once or twice a day and only checking your messages during these times. This may be the best way to make sure that you’re in control of your email and not vice-versa, but I don’t have the luxury of checking and responding to my email only once or twice a day. I don’t have to be on top of it minute-by-minute, but I need to be responsive at least hourly. And I’m willing to guess than unless you’re in a pretty high position within your company, you’re in a similar situation too.

So how do you take back some control over your email? Turn off all the distractions! Though the pop-ups and new message sounds are enabled by default, you can turn them off. Here’s how:

1. In Outlook 2003 click the menu "Tools"
2. Choose the menu option "Options".
3. Click on the button "E-mail Options".
4. Click on the button "Advanced E-mail Options"
5. Un-check the options "Play a sound", "Briefly change the mouse cursor", and "Display a New Mail Desktop Alert...".

I like to leave the option "Show an envelope icon in the notification area" option turned on. That way I can glance down and see if new email awaits. It also serves as a reminder for me to check my messages about once an hour, but die-hard productivity fans may want to turn the envelope icon off too.

While I was typing this article I received 5 email messages. Fortunately I didn’t notice because I had these notifications turned off. Instead of being tempted to jump away from writing this article, I was able to finish and then check my messages.

Changing these settings allows me go about my work without being interrupted by “dings” and pop-up windows, and it lets me take some control back over how I let (or in this case, don’t let) others interrupt me via email.

* * * * * If you enjoyed this article, will you please consider bookmarking it on del.icio.us?

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• Send your productivity through the roof!

December 5th, 2005

Entry Filed under: Time Management, Productivity