February 18 2007

Q: I use Microsoft Outlook to manage my appointments. Is there a way to change the default duration for new Appointments from 30 minutes to 1 hour?

A: Unlike other Schedule Management programs, Outlook doesn’t have an option to change the duration of new Appointments – In my opinion, this is a short-coming of Outlook. The way you can get around it is by changing the time increments of your Calendar, then by default the default for new Appointments changes to 1-hour.

Here’s how:

-In Outlook (all versions)
-Change the default duration of your calendar
1. Click on the Calendar button or your Calendar Folder in your Folder tree
2. View > Day (to change to the Day view if you aren’t already there)
3. View > Arrange By > Current View > Customize Current View >
-In the Customize Current View Day/Week/Month window
4. Click the ‘Other Settings…’ button
-In the Format Day/Week/Month window
5. Change the ‘Time scale:’ to 60 minutes
6. Click ‘OK’
7. Click ‘OK’
Now when you schedule a new appointment, it will automatically be scheduled for an hour.

That’s it!