You know that crazy “you-have-an-e-mail-and-should-look-at-it-right-now” box that hovers on your screen — teasing you to break away from your work? Just turn it off. It’s easy to do, you just have to know where to look!

  • email notificationIn Outlook 2010 and 2007, go to File, Options, and under Mail, in the Message Arrival section, uncheck the “show an envelope icon in the taskbar”.
  • In older versions of Outlook, go to the toolbar, then Tools, and choose Options. And on the Preferences tab, under Email, choose the E-mail Options button. Under Message handling, click on the Advanced E-mail Options button. You will see options in the “When new items arrive in my Inbox”. To turn off the floating box, uncheck the Display a New Mail Desktop Alert.

TIP: While you’re at it, you can uncheck any of the options to minimize visual and audio incoming e-mail alerts. This strategy will stop you from being distracted so that you can continue working on your top priority.