Fixing speed problems in Outlook by Working Offline.

If you find Outlook almost hanging up on you while you are writing emails, this tip will save you from a lot of frustration (and as a bonus increase your focus and productivity).

Does this sound familiar…?

You’re replying to an email and then Outlook starts doing something in the background. It basically locks up! You can’t do anything except wait for it to finish!

After a few moments, you get tired of waiting so you switch over to something that still works on your computer… something to do while you’re waiting… most probably the Internet… or Facebook.

10 minutes later you remember what you were actually working on!  That’s 10 minutes wasted just because Outlook started doing something you never asked it to in the first place.

And it’s not just 10 minutes. It normally takes another 10 minutes to get refocussed again.

How many 10 minutes do you lose in your day?

I spend a significant part of my day working on emails and recently I have been having this problem several times a day.

I use Outlook 2013 with Office 365 and I discovered that the problem seems to coincide with when my Outlook is syncing emails with Office 365… particularly when I am working from home where my Internet connection is not as fast.

I found that I can greatly improve my productivity by making Outlook work offline when I plan to do actual work.

This is what you need to do:

1. Go to Outlook
2. Click Send/Receive on the Ribbon and then click Work Offline.

1. Work on your emails
2. Make Outlook go back online (by clicking on the Work Offline button again).

Warning: Please remember to make Outlook go online again. While Outlook is offline, no emails will be sent or received. Emails that you send will still be in the Outbox and new emails will be not be received in your Inbox (they will be waiting to be downloaded from your mail server when you go back online).

This simple tip has had a surprisingly positive effect on my productivity. Why?

1. It stops Outlook from hanging up so I am able to get what I am working on completed without waiting for Outlook. I don’t get distracted to look at other things (Facebook!!).
2. I also don’t get distracted by new emails popping in to the Inbox while I am working on something. (New emails are not downloaded while Outlook is working offline)
3. As a bonus I enjoy work more without the frustrations of waiting.

Did this tip help you? Do you have your own tips for fixing Outlook performance issues? Please let us know by leaving a comment below.