The Ultimate Guide to Outlook Focus Time

When your time and attention are being pulled in a hundred different directions, you’re likely to feel overwhelmed and less productive. There’s actually a name for this state of mind: Reactive and Distracted. If you’re spending much of your day in this brain state — and many of us do — it’s nearly impossible to make traction on deep, meaningful work.

We’re here to help. With Microsoft’s new focus time feature (available in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams), you can finally achieve the level of flow you need to produce your best work and, more importantly, keep your stress levels down! In this blog post, we break down everything you need to know about Microsoft’s focus time feature, including what it is, what it does, and how to use it.

Additionally, we offer an alternative that harnesses the power of AI for Outlook. (Hint: It’s trusted by over 15,000 organizations to maximize their time and prevent burnout.) Let’s dive in!

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Why focus time is your best investment

First, let’s briefly cover why it’s so important to manage your ability to focus as much as you do your time. Just take a look at some of these stats:

• Context switching reduces a person’s productivity by 40%
• An employee has an average of 11 minutes between interruptions
• The average employee spends 61% of their time on busywork outside their role

It’s no wonder productivity is a huge topic these days! Many of us are stuck in a cycle of notifications, multitasking, and shallow work. And as the above stats show, it’s seriously impacting our ability to get things done. But here’s the good news: As the world wakes up to the value of focused work, technology is also rising to the challenge.

From apps designed to streamline the Pomodoro technique to others that automatically enable Do Not Disturb whenever you’re busy, there are all kinds of tools to help you focus better. In the next section, we’re giving you the rundown of Microsoft’s focus time feature.

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All about Microsoft Viva and how it can encourage better time management

If you’re a Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Teams user, you’re in luck. Users can create a personal focus plan in Microsoft Viva, the employee experience platform included within Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams. A personal focus plan allows you to block time to take care of important tasks and projects. Like Tony Robbins said, “If you schedule it, it’s real.”

Plus, it’s automatic. That means all you have to do is set up your preferences, and then Microsoft Viva will schedule focus time for you, every single day. Talk about setting your workweek up for time management success! You configure your plan settings based on:

• How much focus time you want 
• Whether you prefer focus time in the morning or afternoon (no right answers here; it’s a personal preference!) 
• How you want to manage reminders and notifications in Teams during focus time

What else does a personal focus plan do? During booked focus time, your status in Teams and Skype for Business automatically changes to “Focusing” to notify your coworkers when you’re busy. Notifications are also paused during blocks of focus time. But don’t worry, you also have the option to set priority contacts, so that important messages can still come through during focus time slots, so you never miss a beat.

Ready to make your personal focus plan? We’ll guide you through it.

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How to create a focus plan in Microsoft Viva

Microsoft Viva, the employment experience platform in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams, gives you two ways to create your own focus plan:

• 1. Microsoft Viva Insights app (in Microsoft Teams or on the web)
• 2. Insights Outlook add-in

Option 1: Viva Insights app

Microsoft Viva Insights is an app that can be accessed in Microsoft Teams or on the web. Here’s how to create your focus plan using this method:

• 1. Click the Take action to improve your wellbeing section of your Wellbeing tab
• 2. In the “Start a daily focus plan” card, select Set daily focus plan (Note: there are other great options available, including shared focus plans and team no-meeting days!)

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• 3. Follow the prompts to enter your preferences, such as how much focus time you want to schedule each day and whether you prefer to focus in the morning or afternoon

You’re all set! If you ever want to change your plan configuration, all you need to do is select the ellipses in the top right of any Viva Insights tab, select Settings, and then select Protect time.

Want to schedule individual blocks of focus time (i.e., without creating or changing a focus plan)? You can book a one-time, non-recurring focus session for an ad hoc project or an unexpected task. Here’s how to do that:

• 1. Navigate to the Act with intention section of your Wellbeing tab
• 2. In the “Book focus time” section, Microsoft offers suggested time slots based on your availability in Outlook calendar. You can view a week’s worth of available time
• 3. Select Book to reserve a suggested time slot. The time you've chosen will be added to your calendar!

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Great! You’ve now created an individual focus time event.

Pro tip: Productivity guru, including Cal Newport and Nir Eyal, argue that deep, profitable work requires chunks of uninterrupted time that are at least two hours, preferably longer. If you can, set your preferences to aim for two hours a day.

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Option 2: Insights Outlook add-in

If you have a Microsoft 365 plan and a valid Outlook mailbox, then you can use the Viva Insights Outlook add-in to create a focus plan.

• 1. Click on Want focus time every day?
• 2. Select Book now

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You’re all set! Now that Microsoft Viva Insights understands your preferences, it will book focus time for you automatically, using your Microsoft Outlook calendar. If you want to personalize your focus time to show as a specific color, you can follow these instructions. You’ll be able to check the progress of your focus plan to make sure you have focus time booked every day in the Track your progress section of the Wellbeing tab.

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How to create a shared focus plan in Microsoft Viva

You can also create a shared focus plan in Microsoft Viva Insights if you want to promote shared productivity habits across your team or a group of coworkers. 

To set up a shared focus plan, follow these steps:

• 1. Click the Take action to improve your wellbeing section of your Wellbeing tab
• 2. In the “Start a shared focus plan” card, select Set up plan 
• 3. Follow the prompts to enter your preferences, including:
  
  • Who you want to invite 
  • The number of hours you want 
  • Morning or afternoon focus time preferences 
  • Teams reminders and notifications settings 

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Then, share the invite! You’re all set.

How to change or leave your focus plan

Next up, let’s talk about how to change or leave your focus plan. (This information comes in handy when your schedule changes or you’re going out of office.)

• 16. Open the Microsoft Viva Insights app
• 17. Select Protect time in the tab bar
• 18. Make the changes you want to make, including your scheduled hours per day, morning or afternoon preferences, and reminder and notification preferences (Or, instead of adjusting your preferences, you can select the Leave plan button.)

That’s all you need to do to update your focus plan. Simple, right? 

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Additional information about Microsoft’s focus time feature

Want to learn more about focus time in Microsoft Viva? Here are some additional details about how it works, such as how Viva chooses time slots.

• Viva will never double-book you by scheduling focus time over an existing calendar event.
• Viva schedules focus time two weeks in advance.
• You can check the progress of your focus plan, which includes metrics such as the number of days you had focus time last week.
• Viva Insights selects time slots based on your preferred duration for focus time and whether you prefer to focus in the morning or afternoon. However, it prioritizes duration over time of day.
• You can set a status message that automatically sends to your colleagues while you’re in Do Not Disturb mode.
• Viva protects the noon to 1 p.m. period by default, allowing you to enjoy lunchtime. However, if there aren’t any other available time slots, Viva will book noon to 1 p.m. for focus time.
• Focus time is typically one, two, or four hours, but Viva Insights can book focus blocks as short as 30 minutes if that’s all that’s available.
• Four hours is the maximum length of a focus time block, but you can extend your focus time manually in your Outlook calendar.

The better way to schedule focus time

Deep work is our obsession. It’s the reason we created Clockwise, the first-ever time orchestration platform. Clockwise learns what we need from each day and what our coworkers need from us. Then it makes time for both, using AI to find the right moments for us to meet while protecting focus time, too.

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So what makes Clockwise more powerful than Microsoft’s focus plan feature? While Microsoft merely books focus time for you and calls it a day, Clockwise dynamically looks at your entire team’s schedules, finding the optimal way to arrange Focus Time and meetings alongside each other. Clockwise makes your schedule work better for you and your teammates.

Note: We don’t recommend using Microsoft Viva focus plans with Clockwise. Allowing Viva to create a focus time hold on your calendar will cause an inflexible hold on your calendar that will cause difficulty in providing flexibility in your day.

It’s the modern way to bring schedules together in harmony at the organizational level, making our schedules dynamic and our time personal. And, both Microsoft and Google users can get started for free.

Just take a look at what Clockwise can do for you:

• Manage scheduling requests via chat with our AI Scheduling Assistant 
• Move flexible meetings to their best times for you and your teammates
• Create blocks of uninterrupted Focus Time in your day
• Protect and automate Flexible Holds (where you are the only attendee) so you can find time for your recurring routines
• Provide an easy way to share your availability with Clockwise Scheduling Links
• Reschedule meeting conflicts automatically
• Optimize your schedule for your most productive times

That’s only a sneak peek of how Clockwise reworks your workday for better focus and less burnout. Click here to discover more of the amazing benefits of using our time orchestration platform.

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Going forward

Take some time out of your day to finally focus on something other than busywork. Doing so won’t just make you more productive; it’ll also help you feel less stressed. Try out Microsoft Viva’s built-in focus time feature to automatically book focus time every day. Or, make calendar management a breeze with Clockwise, a free AI-powered calendar assistant that optimizes meeting times and Focus Time for your entire team.

Read next:

• Microsoft Bookings vs Calendly vs Clockwise ‍
• Time Blocking in Outlook
• Creating a Meeting Link in Microsoft Teams

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