Has this ever happened to you?

You morning starts off great.  You beat all the traffic, get into the office precisely at the time you are supposed to start, and enjoy the best cup of coffee you have had in months.

You open up Outlook, and put that appointment in your calendar that you had thought of on the way into office.

But then something horrific happens.  When you go to check your email, there is a new meeting request in there – for the exact same time you just set the appointment in your calendar.  What are you to do????

…

Ok… I might be getting a little dramatic here, but this has happened to me a couple of times over the last few months – and today thanks to my friend Alistair Speirs (Australia’s premier Microsoft Office Client Technology Specialist – try Googling/Live Searching that now Al!), I have found a way to avoid this exact situation in the future.

There is a command line switch for Outlook 2007 which will start Outlook, force detection of all the new meeting requests that people sneakily invited you too overnight, and push them straight into your calendar before you get a chance to look at it.

The outcome being that you have a clear and accurate picture of how your time will be used today – before you start digging into your email.

And the best part is, the switch has a cool name… /sniff

For those that don’t know how to use switches, my advice would be to visit the Microsoft Office Online page that talks about Command-line switches for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.

And if you want to take a look at some other switches that will make you more productive – check out the original post on Alistair’s blog.

‘till next time!
TNP