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These top tips will help you reduce work fatigue and stay productive in Microsoft Teams
5 min. read
Published onNovember 12, 2020
published onNovember 12, 2020
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As you use Microsoft Teams for work or school, you might experience a little fatigue throughout your day. You could be getting too many notifications, or you could be finding it hard to focus during meetings. Well, Teams has some in-built features which can help you tune things out and stay a bit more productive. Here’s a look at some of our top tips on how you can use this to your advantage.
Tip 1: Mute conversations and threads you don’t want to be notified about
Our first tip is one that a lot of people might appreciate — muting a conversation or a thread. You might want to do this when you end up getting bombarded with notifications from threads that you no longer want to be notified about. That’s because, by default, Teams will notify you about all threads that you left a message In.
To turn off notifications for a specific thread, you can hover over that thread with your mouse until you see the ( . . . ) more options button. From there, you’ll want to clickTurn off notifications. Once you click that, you’ll only be notified if someone directly @mentions you or reacts to your message in that thread.
Since Teams doesn’t currently let you delete chats, you also can mute a conversation or a private message that you don’t want to be a part of, too. To do this, just hover over the chat, click the ( . . . ) more button, and then chooseMute. Simple as that!
Tip 2: Change your status
While muting conversations or threads is one way to reduce fatigue from notifications, another method is a bit simpler: change your status. When you change your status in Teams, notifications won’t come in depending on which status you’ve chosen. You can change your status by clicking your profile photo and then choosing one from the menu.
When you’reAvailable, you’ll get all notifications. When you don’t want to be distributed at all, it’s best to chooseBusyas this status will stop all notifications from popping up.Do not disturbis when you want to focus or present your screen and don’t want notifications to pop up.Appear awayis when you need to work without responding right away.Appear offlineis when you want to indicate that you’re not signed in to Teams, so will not be responding until you’re back online. You’ll still receive notifications if anyone messages you.
Tip 3: Control your notifications
If you’re hoping to stay focused in Teams, a good way to do so is to take complete control of your notifications. You can do this by clicking your profile photo, and then chooseSettings. From there, selectNotificationsin the sidebar.
From notification settings, there’s quite a lot that you can control. If you’re getting bombarded with emails from Teams, you can turn off missed activity emails. You also can turn off message preview, and the sound for notifications, if you’re constantly getting notified, too.
In addition, you have the ability to set custom notification settings for teams and channels. Usually, if you don’t want to be over notified, it’s best to set these toonly show in feed. You also can turn offAll new posts, too. There’s a lot of options here, and we invite you to checkout our post here for more information.
Tip 4: Record meetings, and take notes!
The last tip on our list comes in two parts. It’s related to recording meetings and taking notes. Often, the stress point with meetings is that there’s a worry you might miss something important, which is why people often take notes. Well, did you know that you can record meetings, and take notes, right from within Teams?
With your coworker’s permission, you can record a meeting by hovering your mouse to the top of the screen, click the three dots, and thenStart Recording. The meeting will then be saved to Microsoft Stream, for you to view later. Of course, it’s best to ask permission, first, as a meeting can sometimes be private.
In addition to recording a meeting, you also can take meeting notes directly from Teams, too. To do this, click the three dots, and then chooseMeeting notes. Meeting notes will open up OneNote, where you can take your notes, and access them later, directly from the chat for that meeting. We explained how this feature works in another piece, so you cancheck out our article for more.
Check out our Teams hub for more
This is just our latest entry into the Microsoft Teams series. We invite you to check out our Microsoft Teams hub for more information. We’ve covered topics likeLists in Teams, how tomake the most out of the chat feature, and even how tojoin meetings across multiple devices. If it’s about Microsoft Teams, we have you covered!
Radu Tyrsina
Radu Tyrsina has been a Windows fan ever since he got his first PC, a Pentium III (a monster at that time).
For most of the kids of his age, the Internet was an amazing way to play and communicate with others, but he was deeply impressed by the flow of information and how easily you can find anything on the web.
Prior to founding Windows Report, this particular curiosity about digital content enabled him to grow a number of sites that helped hundreds of millions reach faster the answer they’re looking for.
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