Don’t Send Stupid Emails
The Scenario
Your email:
Hi Mary,
Joe is driving me crazy. I have talked to him multiple times about the complaints at the Omni Building but he hasn’t improved the service at all. I am thinking about firing him next time he comes in. Give me your thoughts.
Regards,
Jon
You hit send and as you press the button you notice that you addressed the email to Marty (Joe’s best friend) instead of Mary your office manager. “Uh-Oh!”
Or what about this scenario?:
You send an email to a client with the words, “…is attached” and you hit send, forgetting to attach the file?
The Solution
We all make stupid mistakes in emails. This year, I discovered a trick that has saved me from those scenarios many times: have your email program delay sending items until three minutes after you hit send. Here are the steps to set it up in Outlook 2007 (Similar in different versions as well):
1. Select Tools > Rules and Alerts
2. Click New Rule.
3. Select “Check Messages after Sending” then click Next.
4. Click Next Again.
5. A message box will pop up telling you that it will be applied to every message you send. Click Yes.
6. On the next screen, click the checkbox next to the last option (defer delivery by a number of minutes).
7. In the bottom part of the window, click “a number of.”
8. Enter 3 minutes then click ok.
9. Click Next.
10. Click Next again.
11. Here you can title your rule something like “Don’t Send Stupid Emails” as it was put by The HowToGeek
12. Click Finish.
Outlook will now wait three minutes after you click send to actually send it. If you realize that you need to change something within those three minutes, just go to your outbox and change or delete the email.
Do you have any tips on how you prevent yourself from making stupid mistakes? Feel free to share them in the comments.
Source: How to Geek
