Check email at time(s): X, Y, Z

[Krystian]

Check email at time(s): X, Y, Z
Hello,


Problem Statement:
I noticed recently that having set my outlook installation to do
send/receive every hour is a productivity killer. For my (late) new year's
resolution, I need to reduce my email checking and start taking care of my
daily emails in batches. Otherwise, they wreak productivity havoc. The
current Send/Receive rules don't quite provide the functionality I'm looking
for to accomplish this need.

I would like Outlook to send/receive all emails at 7:00 AM and 8:00 PM every
day. If my computer was down and outlook didn't check, it should check at
the next scheduled time.

Now I ask for some advice, is it best to:
1. Have a script load Outlook at those times and cause it to exit, having
outlook do send/receive on exit?
2. Somehow do this within Outlook? (though internal scripting)


Problems (I'm not an Outlook developer, but here are some thoughts):
With #1:
* Early termination of Outlook?
* If I have messages in outbox scheduled to send at future time, outlook
will popup a message before closing telling me I have messages needed to be
sent?
* disable/enable 'check email at time(s)' functionality not done through
GUI. The solution (if it becomes a great idea) may not be easy to share with
friends.
With #2:
* Solution may not work in future versions?
* If outlook crashes, the functionality will too.

Good things:
#1:
* Portable.
* Can recover from outlook crashes.
#2:
* When outlook is open (even in taskbar), that means I am interested in the
program checking at 7:00 and 5:00. When I close outlook, that tells the
system 'don't do anything'. Very relaxing to do it this way because it
avoids the problem of #1: not having outlook open at 5:00 PM because I could
be coding something, and having Outlook popup and then close.


Concerned about Email Fatigue and disorientation it causes in the middle of
work,
Krystian.

I have combed through the Outlook MVPs hoping to find something on this
topic, they are listed at:
http://www.mvps.org/links.html#Outlook

and looked through available code at:

http://www.outlookcode.com/
http://www.howto-outlook.com/addins.htm
http://www.slipstick.com/addins/index.htm (Productivity and Task
directories)

 

[Sharad Naik]

A Very simple solution indeed:

In outlook click on Tools->Options
In 'options' window click on 'Mail Setup'
Click on 'Send/Receive'
Typically you should have only one group listed under "All Accounts" which I
guess is the case from your post.
Highlight it.
Unter Setting for group "All Accounts" do following:
Check the box "Include this group in send receive (F9)"
UNCHEK box "Schedule an automatic send receive every xx minutes"
Unchek box "Perform an automatic send/receive when exiitng"

Under 'When Outlook is offline"
uncheck all boxes.


So now outlook will never do a send receive automatically. Whenever you want
do it Press "F9" or
click on 'Send/Receive' on the tool bar.

Easy istn't it?

Sharad

 

[Krystian]

So now outlook will never do a send receive automatically. Whenever you

want do it Press "F9" or
click on 'Send/Receive' on the tool bar.

Hey Sharad,

I want to remove the thought of doing the send/receive task throughout the
day. This is because I'm tempted to do it more than I should.

That's why the solution of having Outlook (or the script) do it for me, and
only at those times. This way I can learn to schedule a predictable 15
minutes each time I check/review/respond emails which I find to be very
necessasy.

-Krystian.