A day in the life of a program manager with anxiety using Microsoft Teams


6:00 am

Quiet time: Breakfast and the financial news, which he reads using Dark Mode in Edge. His teammates in another time zone are already chatting, so he turns on Quiet Hours in Teams to suppress messages until 8 a.m.

8:00 am

To stay in control of his time, he uses the Insights app in Teams to block focus time throughout the day. He also preemptively sets focus time for Monday.

8:30 am

Justin opens Teams and Outlook to catch up on missed messages. He uses Dark mode and Night mode, which are easier on his eyes in the morning.

9:00 am

His teammates are flying in next week. He books multiple meetings to collaborate in person. Outlook suggests blocking focus time on his calendar as well.

11:00 am

Joins a meeting via Teams. He turns on Together mode so he can see everyone’s faces in the same digital room. This makes it easier for him to understand facial expressions and body language, easing the mental load.

12:30 pm

Justin wants to find employees like himself to connect and raise awareness. He uses Yammer to find the organization’s Mental Health Employee Resource Group.

2:00 pm

Justin takes mid-day walks to help maintain his well-being. Before grabbing his keys, he sets his presence status in Teams to let his colleagues know he’ll be away.

4:00 pm

Opens MyAnalytics to check on a personal goal: 7 Quiet Days per month in which he doesn’t engage with work. He’s already logged 4 quiet days in the first two weeks. Things are looking great!

4:45 pm

Almost done! He reviews an email for a coworker. It’s after 5 p.m. in her time zone, so he uses the Delay Delivery feature in Outlook to send it Monday.

5:00 pm

It’s Friday, and he’s ready to spend some time with family. Justin sets his Quiet Days as Saturday and Sunday, so he can step away undisturbed by work notifications on his mobile device. He’ll see notifications from his colleagues again on Monday morning!