As I’m getting my new laptop set up for my new job, I’m remembering a bunch of the tweaks I’ve made over the years to my setup so I’m sharing in the hopes that it helps you be more productive.
No one likes being in back-to-back meetings all jammed up against each other. In the past, I wrote an Outlook macro to chop the last 5 minutes off an appointment or move the appointment back 5 minutes off the 1/2 hour. Now, Outlook will allow you to do this without having to script any macros. I’ve seen two different iterations of this so your mileage may vary depending on which version of Microsoft Outlook you’re using at your organization. I’ll offer both screenshots below. Both screenshots are accessed via the Calendar Options menu by going to File > Options > Calendar > Calendar Options. In both cases, you select that you’d like to modify the length of meetings, then specify how.
Hopefully, this tip was helpful, please let me know if there are other TechTips you’d be interested in.
10/28/2021 Update: Due to the nature of the way my organization works, I have since shifted my setting to start meetings late. You will have to see what works for your organization.
I have also been made aware that this setting is not currently available for Macs. It is unfortunately only available on Windows PCs at this point in time.