If you have been following our marketing initiatives, you know by now that recalling emails does not work and just makes you look like a <insert>. It’s all well when double-sending technique is used to prop your sales figures but what about those occasions when you pressed the Send button only to realize split moment later that you shouldn’t have done it, really. Individual causes range from forgetting to attach a file to calling your boss a <insert>.

I was told that the period between you pushing the send button and realizing that you shouldn’t have done it is called ohnosecond and apparently it’s well under 10 seconds on most occasions.

If you use Outlook, there is a simple solution to mitigate the self-harm and extend the ohnosecond.

1. Click Files > Manage Rules & Alerts
2. Click New Rule
3. Select Apply rule on messages I send, click Next
4. Click Next, then agree to apply rule to every message
5. Check defer delivery by a number of minutes, click a number of in the lower panel, click OK to set it to 1, click Next
6. Check except if it is marked as importance, set importance to High, click Next
7. Name the rule something profound, set other options as needed

Your rule should look like this:

This rule will delay all outbound emails by 1 minute. So if you say “Doh!” within one minute of pushing the send button, calmly reach for the Outbox and nuke that message. For urgent boss stuff, set message priority to high.