A method is disclosed for automating a selected delay within a data processing procedure. A desired deferral time is specified and associated with a particular document or process within a data processing system. Thereafter, the occurrence of the desired deferral time results in the automated processing of the associated document by the system. In one embodiment of the present invention a user may specify a particular date and time after which a response to a particular document is desired. The desired deferral time is then associated with the particular document in a distribution profile and utilized to either prompt a recipient to respond after the elapse of the specified time or to automatically defer the transmission of the recipient's response until the desired time. Similarly, a user may utilize this technique to chronologically order the fan out distribution of a document by transmitting a list of desired addressees and an associated desired deferral time for each such addressee to a transmission service.
Thereafter, as each desired deferral time elapses the document will automatically be transmitted by the transmission service to an associated addressee.