Wait, turn off Outlook's you've-got-mail alerts? Why on earth would you want to do that? In a word: productivity. New e-mail messages are constantly flowing into your in box all day, and by default Outlook alerts you to the arrival of each and every message. Though that certainly seems appropriate, the end result isn't much different from a coworker's popping his head into your office every 5 minutes to ask some trivial question. Talk about productivity killing interruptions! Consequently, you may want to try life without those new-message alerts -and disabling them is easier than you might think. Choose Tools-Options, click E-mail Options, and then select Advanced E-Mail Options. In the resulting window, you will need to un check four boxes: Play a sound, Briefly change the mouse cursor, Show an envelope icon in the notification area, and Display a New Mail Desktop Alert. Then click OK, and you're done.

Outlook will continue to fetch (or receive) your new e-mail messages at regularly scheduled intervals, of course, but it will do so without subjecting you to the usual interruptions. In other words, you can now review your inbox on your schedule, not Outlook's.