Shafqat Malik
25 March, 2024
The positive impact of technology on mental
wellbeing
wellbeing
It is ever more important in the current age to ensure our mental wellbeing is given the thought
it duly requires.
On a personal note, having 4 young children, a business and lots of voluntary charity work presented an enormous pressure
on life in general. And if not for the positive impact of technology, it would have been much more challenging to manage
There are many ways of enhancing your mental wellbeing. The following recommendations are
focused solely on how technologies such as Microsoft supported me with the day-to-day activities.
Leveraging Microsoft Teams to work flexibly, allowed me to balance personal commitments with my work agenda
On a personal note, having 4 young children, a business and lots of voluntary charity work presented an enormous pressure
on life in general. And if not for the positive impact of technology, it would have been much more challenging to manage
There are many ways of enhancing your mental wellbeing. The following recommendations are
focused solely on how technologies such as Microsoft supported me with the day-to-day activities.
Leveraging Microsoft Teams to work flexibly, allowed me to balance personal commitments with my work agenda
For the purpose of this article, I will focus on the following wellbeing aspects:
- Mindful of me
- Mindful of others
- Managing time
- In the zone
- Minimise distractions
- Switching off
Mindful of Me
Set your own boundaries – Set quiet hours/ days in the Teams
mobile app
While our mobiles have un-tied us from our desks, it can be a challenge when trying to switch
off. You can set your own boundaries by configuring quiet hours and days in the Teams mobile
app.
Track your wellbeing – monitor quiet days / after-hours activity in My Analytics
Remember to keep yourself in check by taking note of the Wellbeing insights you get in Outlook,
delivered as part of MyAnalytics and see how you’re tracking with your quiet days.
Mindful of Me
Delay after-hours emails
Some of us spend most of our days in meetings and therefore, spend our evenings catching up
on
emails. Be mindful of how this impacts your team, particularly if you’re a manager. While
you
may not set the expectation to reply to the email, the simple act of reading will have an
impact.
- Keep your after-hours impact in check by monitoring My Analytics.
- Consider delaying the delivery of your email (using the ‘Delay Delivery’ option in Outlook), this way you can still work in the way you like, whilst minimising the impact on others.
Record your meetings, make them inclusive
Think about those that can’t make your meeting time, or like to learn at their own pace,
record
your team meetings
Managing Time
Schedule time to review emails, to learn and just get things done
with Focus time
Leverage the insights from MyAnalytics to understand your current ways of working and
whether there are areas that can help you become more efficient and productive. MyAnalytics can
provide insights around your out of hours working, your top collaborators, recommendation on
focus time, to actually get work done, etc.
In the Zone
Set ‘Do Not Disturb’ in Teams
Prevent interruptions while working on critical tasks or projects by setting Do Not Disturb in
Teams and prevent distractions, whilst still being able to get notifications from your
pre-assigned priority (see ‘Manage priority access’ privacy settings in Teams)
Improve focus
Improve focus and comprehension by using immersive reader in Teams, Office and Edge. Reading
comprehension of long documents is made easier when words are highlighted while read out loud.
This feature is a great inclusive design tool for reading long, complicated text, when
multi-tasking, or when you get tired at the end of the day.
Minimise Distractions
Maintain Focus
- Maintain focus on what really matters during the meeting, the people and the content being shared by removing any background noise using Background Effects in Microsoft Teams Meetings (Blur background)
- Encourage no device policy in meetings to promote full engagement
- Prevent unnecessary distractions by disabling all social media notifications on your phone
Switching Off
Work life balance is important
- When you’re on holiday, set your Out of Office automatic replies and stop syncing Outlook
- Additionally, leave your laptop at home and feel empowered to remove work apps off your phone to avoid sneak peeking into your emails.
MS Teams: Top Productivity Tips
- Arrange your Teams in an order that makes sense to you, putting the busiest Teams at the top of your list, do this by selecting and dragging them
- Pin your favourite channels at the top of the list
- Keep on top of things through your activity feed
- Use filter or type /unread in the search bar to see your unread channel notifications.
- Use filter or type /mentions in the search bar to see all your @mentions.
- Save messages and find them easily later
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