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New options help you carve out downtime between meetings
Settings in Microsoft Outlook make it easier and automatic to carve out these essential breaks between back-to-backs
- Breaks between meetings allow the brain to “reset,” reducing a cumulative buildup of stress across meetings.
- The antidote to stress buildup is taking short breaks
- For example, in a study of brain wave activity, researchers confirmed what many people sense from experience: Back to-back virtual meetings are stressful, but there is a simple remedy: short breaks.
How we are adapting our products-and practices
These findings helped inform settings in Outlook that allow individuals or organizations to set defaults that shave five, 10, or 15 minutes off Microsoft Teams meetings to carve out breaks between conversations
- For example, an individual or company might decide to start its meetings five minutes after the hour or half-hour, so that 30-minute check ins drop to 25 minutes and hour-long conversations shorten to 55 minutes.
Strategies for making breaks successful-and beating meeting fatigue
Shift your mindset
- View breaks away from your computer as an essential part of your workday
- Find break activities that calm your mind
- Make meetings more intentional
- Keep participants engaged and energized
- Create and send an agenda ahead of time
- Be thoughtful about who attends, starting and stopping on time
