Google Calendar is a great utility for Workspace customers like large organizations, making it reallyconvenient to tell colleagueswhen they can block time with you, and when you have other commitments. Calendar may have switched todelivering event reminders through Google Tasks, but it still is the only way you can define Focus time to get work done. Now, Google is making the Focus time feature even better with a new option to mute Chat notifications.
you may set up Focus time on Google Calendar and define hours of a particular day during which you want to get down to business, or ruminate on that idea you had in the shower. While it is easy enough toset up Do Not Disturb on Android, it isn’t reasonable to expect every Workspace colleague to check your Calendar availability before pinging you on Google Chat.
Although you’re able to mute Google Chat notifications separately, Google Calendar now makes it much more convenient to do so, right when you’re setting up Focus time. In the card where you define the date and time you’re blocking off, just check the box forDo not disturb. This will mute Google Chat notifications for the duration of your Focus time, and re-enable them afterward.
This may seem like a small automation-like feature, but the tight integration across Google Workspace apps can benefit many users. Google started the feature rollout on June 28, and it should reach all eligible Workspace users by July 27.
At least for now, this is a feature exclusive to paid Workspace tiers like Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Business Standard, Business Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus, and Nonprofits. Although it may be less useful to individual users, Google should consider rolling it out to all Gmail users in due course. Support for snoozing notifications on third-party apps like Slack would also be a nice touch.
