When it comes to time management, a few simple practices like limiting your time commitments in Google Calendar, creating a respect etiquette for chatting and emails, and taking breaks can help convey polite signals to colleagues that you would prefer to focus on your work, rather than on them.
People who work in an office space have different ways that they might choose to convey the desire to not be interrupted. In a closed door, or in an open setting with headphones on or earbuds in, indicate a barrier to casual conversation and a preference for privacy.
These four Google Workspace tips and tactics allow you to show your intent to work without interruptions. The steps below will show you how to complete each task on your desktop computer, but the process will be a little different if you’re using a mobile device.
- Open up Google Calendar
- More importantly, drag the appointment button from your calendar onto your desktop
- Hit “More options” in the bottom left corner and choose “Create repeating event”
- Choose how often you want your timer to go off, then click on “Add to my recurring events”
- When you’re done, head back over to Google Calendar and find where you left off
Success is often achieved through a balance of personal time and focus. This can be achieved by scheduling Focus Time on your calendar to prioritize over other meetings. Be sure to check the option to automatically decline invitations while you’re scheduled for Focus Time. This will prevent holding yourself back from achieving success.
It’s important to establish clear guidelines for how much time people spend on focused work in your office. Different roles might have different expectations, so it’s best to discuss with each person what they should be doing during their focused time. For example, you might decide that an hour a day of focus is enough or you might decide that it would make sense to block off a set of days for concentrated focus on a project. Discuss and document the appropriate application of this feature for each person within your organization.
Gcal lets you easily create new focus time events. In order to do so, open up Gcal on the web, and click the “+Create button in the upper left of the page” from there choose Focus Time.
Attach important events and configure the focus time options that you want. Then click ‘Save’. The event will then be added to your calendar.
If you would like to opt out of receiving loud notifications and messages, follow the steps below: 1. Open up Google Chat. 2. Tap on the menu button in the top-left corner of your chat window. 3. Switch your conversation setting from SILENT to DND by navigating to Settings > Do Not Disturb (see screenshot).
If you’re frequently not online during a certain time of the day, you can change your Google Chat status to Do not Disturb to indicate to colleagues that they should defer messaging until a later time. With this option, you still receive every message, but notifications won’t occur. This could be an excellent solution, particularly if you’re always on the go and find yourself needing to catch up with clients or colleagues either in person or through a Google Meet session.
Do you need to cancel all your chat notifications on Google so that your phone won’t beep, buzz, or ring every time a new message comes in? Open Google Chat or Gmail on the web, and select the status indicator in the upper right of the page. The default is “Active.” To mute notifications, select “Do not disturb.”
Next, pick the length of your mute period. You can choose between 1 hour, 2 hours, 4 hours or 8 hours. You can even opt for a mute starting next Friday at 3PM and going until next Monday at 6AM. Our last option lets you choose any specific future date and time to resume Google Chat notifications.
As most businesses set clear email response expectations, I encourage your business to similarly set Chat response standards. Typically, expected Chat response times might be that people would reply within a shorter period of time, such as 24 hours. However, there might also be cases where you need an expected response time of one hour or less in certain roles.
When should you send your emails?
One challenge with email is that when you send an email, the recipient may not have time to reply. The other challenge is that the time when you can reply, such as during a late or regular day, may not be the best time to get a response.
Gmail’s send later feature allows you to schedule your email for a future time and receive it when it’s best for you. Not only does scheduled send allow you to send email only during someone’s standard working hours, but also whenever experts see the best opportunities for engagement.
For more tips on using Gmail, visit our blog. There you’ll find simple tutorials for using important features like send later and scheduling emails.
Choose either one of the two offerings. Or, if you are manually scheduling a message, choose your preferred date and time from the calendar and it will remain in a specific list in the Inbox until it is automatically sent on your preferred day.
When you send an email, the system will take over and send it at the time you’ve scheduled, without having to be online. You can edit your content or change the schedule as often as you want.
The process for editing word documents, spreadsheets, and slideshows offline
There are times when collaboration can be less burdensome, and it may make sense to work alone. You’ll be able to write, organize data and create presentations without the chance that a collaborator will inadvertently access the document or spreadsheet. When you edit offline in Google Docs, Sheets or Slides, changes you make will sync when you connect to the internet again.
Open your Google Drive on the web, and head to Settings in the upper right-hand corner of the page. Select the checkbox next to Offline so that it’s accessible offline.
For end users, Excel Online loads changed, offline-prepared files automatically when they’re needed. This is a default setting for FileZilla, and can be overridden in the settings to manually select a specific file for offline use.
To enable offline access for a specific item on Google Drive, open the Google Drive app. Then, click on the file you want to sync. From there, click the More menu (the “Kebab” menu) and adjust the slider next to “Available Offline,” as indicated by the circled item in . The system may take a moment to sync your data across local devices.
Once synced, a file will display a circled check mark in the bottom of the screen after their name. You’ll able to view your offline files by clicking on their file name.
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Have you considered using a Google Workspace to maximize your focus time? Using Workspace, you can create work sessions and then block off time for that session. You’ll have the freedom to open other documents outside of any timed Microsoft Office Online sessions and keep your productivity high. Furthermore, you can use tools like calendar widgets to see if there are upcoming events or meeting deadlines that could disrupt your work session.
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