You may have been using Microsoft Teams for years but there are still a few hidden gems that can level up your experience and bring some zen to your workday. These Teams features have helped me plan ahead and maintain a healthy work-life balance. Learn how to schedule messages, manage your notifications using quiet hours, and explore the various workflow automations available. The best part?  You don’t need a technical background to use these tools.

As an HR Specialist, I must balance correspondence with my internal team and externally with candidates. To help manage my time, I use scheduling tools in Microsoft Teams and Outlook. Scheduling messages ensures that I follow up with candidates promptly. This feature also lets me work flexibly without disrupting others beyond normal work hours. Say I decided to work in the evening due to a morning appointment; I can schedule those emails or chats for the next work day to send at 9 a.m. instead of disturbing the recipients with notifications outside their scheduled work hours. We’re also a team that spans time zones, so with this tool, I can respect my diverse team’s schedules as well.

Here is how I use these features in Microsoft Teams:

Schedule a message by pressing the + button on the bottom right of the message bar.

Select the desired time.

You’ll know if you’ve set this up correctly if you see the blue text above your message confirming the details of the send.

It’s quite simple to do in Outlook too. Click the dropdown arrow beside send and hit ‘Schedule send’. You’ll then be presented with timing options and the ability to customize as well.

Understanding how to use workflows in Microsoft Teams has been a game-changer. You can create your own workflow from blank, like I’ve done, to follow up on messages, or you can select templates from the library. To access workflows, you can search the app by clicking the three dots here:

This will bring you to a page with templates or an option to create from scratch. Examples of possible workflow templates you can add to Teams include forwarding emails to a channel, creating a Planner task when a channel post starts with TODO, and so much more.

Have some fun designing custom workflows that meet your specific needs. Here’s the result of a custom flow I built to follow up on messages.

It can be difficult to fully step away from your work after hours, especially if you continue to receive notifications on your personal devices. If you have MS Teams on your phone, be sure to go through and update the notification and activity settings—these settings were expanded within the past few months.

When you aren’t actively working, consider blocking or turning off notifications on the app. Hit your profile picture, then settings, where you’ll find notifications. Under ‘Block notifications,’ you can set quiet hours so you won’t be bothered by messages outside your working hours.

If you’re on a Windows computer, you can do this by turning on the Windows Do Not Disturb setting button highlighted below. Then, in your Windows settings, you can activate ‘Turn on do not disturb automatically’ during set times.

After years of using this platform, I’ve learned there’s so much potential to unlock in Teams once you know how to use it effectively to manage your workload. From scheduling messages to using custom or pre-built workflows and blocking off notifications after hours, Microsoft Teams can quickly become your partner in crime, helping you achieve efficiency while maintaining a work-life balance.