A trick to stop e-mail embarrassment

January 6, 2009 by
Filed under: Communication, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views 

E-mail messages sent before they’re reviewed and ready can cause problems ranging from simple embarrassment to sensitive information being sent to the wrong people. Here’s a way to cut down on those mistakes:

Set a rule in Microsoft Outlook so messages will not be sent right away.

Here’s how to do it in Outlook 2003:

  1. Click on the “Rules and Alerts” option in the “Tools” menu.
  2. Click “New rule,” then “Start from a blank rule.”
  3. In the menu that appears, highlight “Check messages after sending” and click “Next.”
  4. Select “Defer delivery by a number of minutes.” The next dialog box will ask you for a number.

Now after you write an e-mail, Outlook will delay delivering it for a certain amount of time. That will give you some extra time to confirm you want to send it or look for any mistakes.

Tags: , ,

Comments

7 Comments on A trick to stop e-mail embarrassment

  1. Kitty on Tue, 13th Jan 2009 2:56 pm

    2. EXCELLENT!!! I think this is a great idea because in the past I have accidentally clicked ‘send’ before I verified everything. But….there is a problem with your suggestion – when I tried to set up the suggested ‘rule’ above, there was no “Defer delivery by a number of minutes” to select in the ‘select conditions’ menu after “Check messages after sending/Next”. I use Outlook in Office 2003 on Windows XP. Any suggestions???

  2. william krupinsky on Tue, 13th Jan 2009 3:05 pm

    3. It works. Kitty did not go far enough. It is not the next box as implied in the instructions. Just keep going “next” and read carefully.

  3. Ian on Tue, 13th Jan 2009 4:53 pm

    4. This article points out a cool tool but is seriously lacking on the correct steps for the novice.
    You must click Next and then Yes to assign this rule to all messages you send. Then you will see the option to defer sending and then follow the prompts to assign the time frame and continue on to name and enable the rule.

  4. Mike on Tue, 13th Jan 2009 5:13 pm

    5. Email Defer is great, but you must check the box this machine only and your see the defer text.

  5. Kitty on Tue, 13th Jan 2009 6:49 pm

    6. Ian – Thanks so much….I’ll do that.

  6. Cheryl on Wed, 14th Jan 2009 9:01 am

    7. People think I take way too much time to send an email – I reread it as well as run spell check, and then read it again. And not filling in the recipient field until the message is ready to send also helps cut down on sending something you will regret. I don’t use Outlook and am not sure if my email client has a similar rule available – but learning to review BEFORE you hit send rather than after is not a bad thing.

  7. Kitty on Wed, 14th Jan 2009 1:48 pm

    8. Thanks everybody….I did as Ian and William suggested, and the deferred rule is now set up. I also agree with Cheryl re the suggestion to NOT fill in the recipient until after the message is reviewed….this definitely cuts down on errors.