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Email is one of the best ways to communicate with people in the business world, but it’s also one of the biggest time drains for those same individuals. Some of the most productive people turn their email completely off and only check it a few times a day, but is there more that you can do to stay productive throughout the day without stressing out that you’re missing important messages? This quick email productivity hack may be the answer that will help you stay more organized and less distracted throughout the day.

Delayed Email Delivery

Even though it’s a core part of Microsoft Outlook, few people realize that you’re able to delay the delivery of emails until a later date or time — and even fewer people use this function on a regular basis. Delaying the delivery of your email is a great way to ensure that people receive your message when they are most likely to act upon it. If you need someone to provide a crucial report for you but they’re currently on vacation, sending an immediate email request is likely to get lost in the waves of requests they will be wading through when they return to the office. If you delay the message until a day or two after they are back in the office, you’re much more likely to receive a response without having to follow up again.

Scheduling Your Day

Another great way to stay focused during the day is to schedule all of your emails to go out at a certain time, perhaps around the time you will be leaving for the day. This allows you to answer emails at preprogrammed times throughout the day, but not being a slave to pinging notes back and forth when you would prefer to focus on other tasks. The hope is that others will respond to your requests at the end of their day, and you’ll have a wealth of actionable responses waiting for you when you come into work the next morning. It’s not difficult to schedule emails for delivery at a later time, and this simple productivity hack could save you over an hour each day — providing you with a significantly greater amount of targeted time to pay attention to what you need to accomplish each week.

You’re not getting more hours added to your day, and there’s almost always more than you can accomplish in any given week. Using these simple email scheduling tips to delay your email deliveries helps you eke more work (and fun!) out of the time that you do have available.

There is any number of reasons to encrypt an email in Microsoft Office Outlook, anything from details about your salary to negotiations to purchase a business. With the state of cybersecurity, you need to know that you are protected from individuals who may attempt to hijack your email as it is in transit between locations, too. Fortunately, Outlook has the functionality built in that will allow you to quickly and easily encrypt your email as well as stop people from forwarding the email message.

Why Is Email Encryption Important?

The rise of malware and ransomware has made many users wary of opening emails, and definitely can make you question opening any attachments — even those from a known user. One of the key reasons for utilizing email encryption is to prevent an attacker from intercepting emails and reading them, or even adding a questionable attachment that could be infected with malware. While there are some web-based encryption platforms, the most effective are often those that are built directly into the email platform being used by staff members on a daily basis.

Email Encryption in the Enterprise

Email encryption options have been around for years and can provide your email and attachments an added level of security that could be necessary for sensitive conversations. In the past, it’s been a bit more challenging to apply encryption and even required an add-in or separate application in order to ensure that your corporate emails are safe in transit. As far back as Office 2007, there’s been the ability to add one-click encryption that applied to a single message. You also have the option to encrypt all outgoing messages, a crucial addition for financial and legal organizations. Network eavesdroppers will be thwarted by this advanced function of Microsoft Outlook. If you are using the Office 365 suite, you can find instructions for encrypting your emails on Microsoft’s help site.

How Does Email Encryption Work?

It’s important to understand that email encryption is a two-way street. Not only is it required that you have the software options available to encrypt messages that you are sending, but your recipient must also be able to remove the encryption with a key in order to view the message or attachment. In Outlook, there is a certificate generated that allows you to store the email in your Sent items as well as provides recipients with a way to respond to the email — as you’ll have to open the encrypted file when it is returned to you. This can become problematic when you have multiple people on a distribution list for your email. When recipients are within your organization, Exchange server stores a copy of the encryption key for each individual on the server for ease of use.

Microsoft Outlook is one of the most widely-used email platforms in the country, especially for business professionals. The simple instructions for email encryption and the quick application of the rule for all emails means it is easier than ever to protect your confidential messages.

The self-proclaimed “search engine that doesn’t track you,” DuckDuckGo is likely the most successful search engine available when it comes to privacy and security.

While Google remains the most popular search engine by far, many users are concerned about its practice of collecting and using your personal data. Namely, Google tracks what you search (yes, everything), stores it, and uses it to provide you with a personalized user experience. Oh, and they also make a profit from it.

What Are the Specific Benefits of Switching to DuckDuckGo?

No Tracking

Of course, this is the biggie. DuckDuckGo doesn’t track you or what you look up online. All searches are 100% anonymous.

No Ads

Google tries to trick users by situating ads at the very top of the page — ads, by the way, that look like search result listings. The only difference is a little box that says “Ad” next to the web address. DuckDuckGo foregoes ads like these, generally starting at the very top of the page with your first search result listing.

Minimalist Interface

Speaking of no ads, DuckDuckGo provides an overall clean and minimalist appearance. Like Google’s results pages, you can toggle between “Web,” “Images,” “Video,” etc. at the top. You can also filter results by region, “Safe Search” mode (for strict or non-filtered adult content), and time period.

Non-personalized Search Results

“Why wouldn’t I want personalized search results?”

Well, you might. But the advantage of not having personalized results is that you’ll see exactly what everyone else sees. In other words, when you search “cocktail recipes” in Duluth, Minnesota, you’ll get the same results as someone searching for “cocktail recipes” in Lyon, France.

Seriously, What’s Actually So Bad About Search Tracking?

Many people’s argument against worrying about Google and other tech giants tracking them (hi, Alexa) is this: “I don’t do anything bad or shameful on the Internet, so why should I care if I’m tracked and my data’s stored?”

That may be true. Certainly, for some, the sheer fact that you’re being listened to, your movements are being tracked, and essentially everything about you (from your age and income to your shoe size and favorite local bar) is being stored … well, it’s alarming and disturbing.

But if that still doesn’t make you ponder the importance of personal data tracking and storing, consider this: Google is using your data to get rich, like, really rich. They’re monetizing everything you do through their platform and making billions in annual profits as a result. The stuff their using? Your shopping habits (Google Express), your online searches (Google Search), your personal conversations (Google Assistant and Google Hangouts), where you go (Google Maps), the news you read and your political leanings (Google News), and much more.

To make matters worse, in many ways, they’re being less than honest about their tactics. For example, their so-called “incognito” mode is far from fully private. Your employer and ISP can still track your searches when you’re in incognito. Furthermore, Google documents you’ve “deleted” and searches you’ve “cleared” aren’t really gone. Google stores them … indefinitely.

Consider a Switch to DuckDuckGo

There’s no doubt that companies like Google provide useful services to individuals and businesses of all kinds. Their search engine is definitely useful as well. Extensive, highly complex algorithms can help you find exactly what you’re looking for, often faster than other search engines.

But if you’re at all concerned with privacy and security for your business and/or at home, consider a search engine switch to the up-and-coming DuckDuckGo. Set it as your homepage, try it out, and see what you think.