Hi Teams Community!
I wanted to share a blog I recently wrote for the Humans of IT MTC blog around my personal experience living with ADD and some of the ways I have managed my work & life.
Teams can be really overwhelming for people - especially if you are new to this new way working. For me, it was almost like going from office with a door at the end of a hallway to sitting in the middle of an enormous open office environment. The different work style was one thing but what was really difficult for me was the 'noise' - there was ALWAYS something that looked important and I could get easily off track if I didn't have a plan. At the end of the day I read some great stuff but wasn't sure if I completed much 'work'.
Here's a couple of tips incase you might feel the same.
1. Use your notifications or don't - but modify them to work how you work. For me, that means NO pop-up notifications. I can't deal with bright shiny objects and notifications get me too far off track. I make sure to check my activity feed (which is where I want my notifications to display) first thing in the morning, between each meeting, and at the end of the day. For me, I treat my activity feed and chats like un-read emails.
2. Filter your activity feed by @ mentions. Though I like to see who 'likes' my messages and what messages have been tagged with channels I follow or teams I belong in, the most important thing to me is when someone tags me in a message or in a post. When I'm tagged, it's like I'm on the 'to' line of an email. When I'm not tagged or part of a channel message, I assume there is no immediate action for me and it's an FYI. Though I do get to those messages, I prioritize the messages that mention me directly.
3. Mark messages un-read if I haven't completed the requested action or flag it if I want to remind myself I have an action. I don't have a great system as to what gets what - but both are ways I track things I have to do. Do what works for you. I just know for me, if I read something and don't mark it, it's gone into a black hole until I get that "ping" IM from someone :)
Hope that helps some of you. Check out the blog for a few trips for other MS products and let us know what tips you might have to help from getting distracted at work.
