I have a rule in Outlook that I call my “Oh shit” rule. It delays all messages from being sent for 1 minute, which is plenty of time for me to realize that I said the wrong thing, sent the wrong thing, forgot an attachment, or copied the wrong people, at which point I can open the message from my Outbox and correct it before it is actually sent. But, it’s not so long that my messages take an inordinate amount of time to arrive when I tell someone “I just sent you this in an email” and they’re wondering where it is.

This wasn’t an original idea of mine – I heard it from somebody else a year or two ago, but I don’t recall whom. I did a quick Google search and Jezz Santos describing his similarly named rule earlier this year, so you may want to read his take on it.

To set up the rule, you go into Rules and Alerts and create a new rule. From the Rules Wizard, choose a blank rule that will Check messages after sending. Finally, defer delivery by a number of minutes (you can set a number of to however many you like). Jezz has some screenshots.

Hope this helps you avoid some of those “Oh shit!” email sending moments…

[categories: Outlook]