You Can Now Snooze Notifications on Google's Office App

Google's Hangouts Chat program lets you communicate with colleagues throughout the day.

It is similar in function to Slack or Microsoft's Teams program. It's a tool to foster productivity as well as collaboration and morale, which studies show are crucial elements to the functioning of a workplace.

But this tool has its downsides, especially when employees are being pinged constantly throughout the day. Combine that with an open office full of real-life distractions, and that can lead to grumpy, unfocused workers.

To remedy this, Google announced Tuesday it has introduced a feature that lets users block out all notifications.

Users will only be able to activate this feature for a set time, ranging from 30 minutes to 8 hours, and must set this timer manually. Colleagues will be able to see that someone has blocked alerts by looking at the status indicator and noting the small purple moon next to their name.

If you are looking for a 24-hour block from notifications, signing out of the program is also an option. Your colleagues might become suspicious, however.