Set Outlook automatically to shorten meetings

Having a series of back to back meetings is relentless. Most of us need breaks to process notes, re-focus and catch our breath.

Outlook has a setting that helps you build in a break at the beginning OR end of every meeting slot. To do this:

1. In Outlook’s main menu go to File, Options.
2. From the pop-up box select Calendar on the left menu and then Calendar Options.
3. Tick the box “Shorten appointments and meetings:”
   
4. From here decide to either Start late or End early, by default, every Outlook meeting. You can still override this default on individual meetings you create.
5. You can set different time buffers for appointments that are less than an hour or last one hour or longer.
6. Choose how much shorter you want to make the meetings by selecting from the drop down, pre-defined options.

This feature depends on the version of Outlook you are using. It is being rolled out to iOS and Android versions.