Work Smarter with the Tools You Already Have
Between meetings, messages, emails, and follow-ups, the workday can fill up quickly. The good news is that many Microsoft 365 tools already include features that can help you save time, stay organized, and reduce manual work.
Start with a Simple System
Give each tool a clear purpose so information is easier to find and manage:
- Copilot for AI assistance and information retrieval
- Outlook for email and calendar management
- Teams for communication and collaboration
- OneNote for notes and reference materials
- Microsoft To Do for tasks and commitments
- Microsoft Bookings for internal scheduling and appointment management
Quick tip: If you are using email, chat, notes, and memory to track the same thing, move it to one dedicated place.
Let Copilot Do the First Pass
Copilot can help summarize information, draft content, prepare for meetings, identify action items, and search across work content in Microsoft 365.
Try using Copilot to:
- Summarize unread emails and lengthy email conversations
- Draft email responses
- Prepare for upcoming meetings by reviewing related communications
- Search across email, Teams, and other work content
Tip: Save a recurring prompt for a weekly summary of unread email, upcoming meetings, and open action items.
Tame Your Inbox
Outlook has several built-in features that can help reduce inbox clutter and speed up routine email tasks.
- Rules automatically move, categorize, or flag messages based on criteria you define.
- Sweep helps clean up repetitive emails in bulk.
- Archive removes completed items from your inbox without deleting them.
- Focused Inbox separates high-priority messages from less important communications.
- Categories and Flags help organize follow-up actions and priorities.
- Quick Parts and My Templates allow users to save and reuse commonly used responses.
- Schedule Send lets users draft messages now and deliver them at a later date and time.
Protect Focus Time
Viva Insights can automatically schedule focus blocks and reduce interruptions, making it easier to protect time for concentrated work.
Learn more about Viva Insights
Make Teams Easier to Follow
Teams brings conversations, meetings, and collaboration into one place. A few small habits can make it easier to keep up without reading everything.
- Summarize meetings
- Identify action items
- Capture key decisions
- Provide recaps of lengthy chats and channel discussions
- Pin important chats, channels, and messages
Teams notification settings, quiet hours, and mobile preferences help users stay informed without being interrupted by every alert.
Get Tasks Out of Your Head
Microsoft To Do gives you one place to manage tasks, reminders, priorities, and follow-ups.
Use My Day to plan daily priorities, Flagged Email to track follow-ups, and reminders to keep commitments visible.
Use OneNote as Your Digital Notebook
OneNote is a helpful place to store meeting notes, decisions, procedures, and reference materials.
- Creating one page for each meeting
- Using tags to mark action items and key information
View a previous webinar recording
Simplify Scheduling with Bookings
Microsoft Bookings makes it easier to manage internal appointments without sending multiple back-and-forth emails.
- Create self-service booking pages for office hours, consultations, or training sessions.
- Use automated reminders to help participants stay on track.
- Connect appointments with Outlook calendars and Teams meetings.
Reminder: Use Bookings for internal scheduling only. Do not use it for patient scheduling or patient data.
More Tools to Explore
If you are ready to try another productivity boost, consider one of these:
Box
AI: Summarize Box files, ask questions about documents, and draft content from stored files.
Hubs: Create a central place for project files, folders, notes, and resources.
Try This Week
Choose one small change that can make your day easier:
Set up one Outlook rule, plan your day in To Do, ask Copilot to summarize a long thread, organize meeting notes in OneNote, or block focus time with Viva Insights.
Small habits add up. The more consistently these tools are used, the easier it becomes to spend less time managing work and more time focused on what matters most.