If you are just using Outlook for email, you are missing about 85 percent of the program’s capabilities. Outlook is an extremely useful way of staying on top of your work, contacts and information. This article explores the top five ways that people are using Outlook to boost their productivity.

Shortcut for Ignoring Conversations Having to deal with dozens of emails is one of the biggest time-killers that people experience. Outlook 2013 makes this easier to avoid with a handy ignore button. If you get messages that are irrelevant or unwanted, you can click the ignore button to make them go away. Better still, all future messages automatically go into your trash can so you aren’t even bothered by them again. If you’re on a message, hit the shortcut combo Ctrl + Delete to ignore the message.

Signature Function If you find yourself sending out similar emails to many people, it can become extremely time consuming and repetitive. For example, after a conference or networking event you may send dozens of people similar emails about how nice it was to meet them and how much you look forward to discussing a certain idea in the future. Outlook 2013 makes this simple with the signature function. Once you have typed out the general message you want to send, simply copy the text by pressing Ctrl + C or right click and copy. Click on Insert, Signature and then Signature again. Click on the New tab, paste your text and click save. You can save this message as a template under a unique name such as ‘Client Meeting’. When you want to send that type of message to a new client or contact, simply click on Signature and select the message template from the list.

Reading Mode The reading mode in Outlook 2013 makes dealing with emails far quicker and boosts your productivity. Simply clicking on the Reading Mode button in the bottom left hand side of the screen allows you to read emails with ease. It hides the menu items on the left-hand side to prevent distractions and speed up reading time. To switch back to normal mode, click on the Normal button next to it.

Insert Online Pictures From Within the Message Body If you need to insert pictures into your emails, Outlook 2013 has been designed to save you time. To insert online pictures without having to download them first, simply go to the Insert tab and click on the Online Pictures button. Once the window opens, search on the picture and download it. Once the image has been added, you can easily resize the picture and realign it by using the alignment guide.

Flawless Evernote Integration If you are an Evernote user, you’ll notice the Evernote logo on Microsoft Outlook 2013. This lets you easily and quickly save an email, attachment or contact to Evernote from Outlook. In terms of boosting your productiveness, this is unparalleled in terms of keeping track of information, contacts and resources. Instead of setting up Outlook folders, desktop folders and Evernote notebooks, you can simply store everything in Evernote and search for it quickly using Evernote’s innovative search function. If you set up your PC or notebook to offline sync with your smartphone or tablet, you can access your information from anywhere at any time very easily.