2022 Work Trend Index: Annual Report Making flexible work meetings at five or 10 minutes after sustainable the hour) Tips from Mary Czerwinski and Shamsi • Keep meetings as short as possible; if Despite the digital overload, people are they’re longer than 30 minutes, include a making flexible work their own, taking control Iqbal, two Microsoft researchers with decades 5-minute break of their time and reshaping the workday. of experience studying productivity, focus • Avoid scheduling large, presentation-only Productivity patterns in Outlook show and wellbeing. meetings in the first hour of the workday 1. Too many meetings when people tend to multitask and catch up people are becoming more intentional about on emails and to-dos taking breaks, avoiding double booking, • Make it a team practice to ask, “Could we 3. Chats or emails from colleagues outside and establishing meeting-free work blocks. cover this in email or chat instead?” my own work hours or during meetings Between March 2021 and February 2022, • Look for opportunities to divide and • Use the delay delivery feature in Outlook for anonymized Outlook calendar data show the conquer meetings with team members emails outside established working hours average number of overlapping meetings • Use the “required” and “optional” lines of • As a team, set expectations on response per person per month decreased by 44%. meeting invites to help people prioritize time to emails and chats sent outside of Compared to last year, teams are starting their time working hours meetings later on Mondays and wrapping up • Block focus time on your calendar for • Use NOT URGENT in the headline of emails earlier on Fridays. There are also fewer noon personal productivity and wellbeing, and or chats when your colleague is in a meeting meetings, which may point to people taking a protect it or it’s outside working hours midday break. More employees are also using • As a team, consider designating certain 4. Working in different time zones their vacation time, with out-of-office time days or time blocks “meeting-free” • Share meeting-related documents ahead of blocks on calendars increasing by 10% in the 2. Waning energy or focus due time and ask for comments so participants last year. to back-to-back meetings can review asynchronously • Share an agenda ahead of the meeting • Record meetings and share notes with and assign an owner to each part invitees afterwards • Create team norms around established breaks between meetings (e.g., start all