Stop Hitting Snooze: Change the Default Reminder Time for Outlook Appointments
How many times has the Outlook reminder popped up on your screen only for you to hit the Snooze button to be reminded again in 5 minutes. How can you possibly be productive while hitting the snooze button repeatedly throughout the day?
This isn’t exactly an earth-shattering geek tip, in fact most of you likely already know how to change the default reminder time. I’m just really tired of getting this popup dialog on my screen, telling me that I have a meeting in 15 minutes… so it occurred to me that I’d be a lot more productive without this nuisance. (of course, I’d be even more productive if I didn’t have to waste my time at the boring meeting)
If you are setting up the boring meeting, you can change the reminder time when setting up a new appointment by checking the Options section on the ribbon.
To change the default across all appointments, open up Tools \ Options and change the Default reminder drop-down:
Change it to 5 minutes, and you don’t have to use Snooze ever again. Just click Dismiss, and go to your meeting. Try not to fall asleep, or at least learn to doze with your eyes open.
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Good idea! I knew how to do it but never thought about it before – that message wastes so much of my life. Almost all my meetings are on the telephone, so I just changed the reminder to 2 minutes.
Now, if you could tell me how to do this for all-day meetings, I would be eternally in your debt. Why in the H*** I would want to get an annoying reminder at 6AM the day before an all day meeting is beyond me. The fact that this “feature” is still not modifiable in 2007 is mind-boggling.
@Chip
That irritates me too! I should look into that…
What it should really do is offer to snooze exactly 1/2 the amount of time between now and when the meeting starts. Also, it should not show a dropdown. There is probably more than enough screen real estate nowdays to show all of the choices. I hate scrolling!!
What I want to do is override the 15-minute default times associated with appointments I accept, without having to remember to change it. In other words, I want my 5-minute default to apply in all situations unless I personally override it.
Thanks for your help. I was really hoping to find how to adjust the default snooze for email message reminder – not appointment reminder. Is there a way to do that? Thanks so much!