Check email at time(s): X, Y, Z "Krystian" <gtg142g[ at ]mail.gatech.edu> 1/29/2006 11:42:31 PM 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)

Re: Check email at time(s): X, Y, Z "Sharad Naik" <sharadnaik[ at ]no-spam.vsnl.net> 1/30/2006 3:20:33 PM 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" <gtg142g[ at ]mail.gatech.edu> wrote in message news:usEat2SJGHA.2900[ at ]TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl... [Quoted Text] > 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) >

Re: Check email at time(s): X, Y, Z "Krystian" <gtg142g[ at ]mail.gatech.edu> 1/31/2006 2:47:20 PM [Quoted Text] > 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.