How to make sure our messages don't end up in the wrong hands.

Everyone makes mistakes once in a while, so mistakes are no big deal, right? Well, it depends on the type of mistake you make. Anyone can excuse a typo or a grammar error as long as it does not change the message's meaning.

What if you accidentally send an email to the wrong person? Well, The strength of the disciplinary action that you receive from this mistake depends on who you send it to. If your boss tells you to send a confidential email to someone and you accidentally send it back to your boss, then you might get a stern warning but nothing more.

But what if you accidentally send it to the exact person who should not get the confidential email? Well, now you're in hot water. Confidential emails are not for everyone. Anyone who receives a confidential email should be on the approved list of people allowed to see that email.

Depending on how confidential the email is, who gets the email, and what industries are in, sending a private, confidential email to the wrong person can cause everything to blow up in your face.

You would be surprised at the number of people who accidentally gave away extremely important secrets to their enemy or to someone who should not know the secrets, all because they added the wrong email address onto the recipient line.

So how do we make sure that our emails and messages do not end up in the wrong hands? Every time you log in or send an email, double-check what you are doing to prevent any of these issues.

• If you send many emails from your personal email, then enable the two-factor authentication password verification. Signing in with T2F is a hassle, but it will keep your personal email account safe from bots.

• Before you send an email, stand up from your desk and walk away. Then come back a minute later and double-check the recipient's email address. Sometimes, when we start the screen too long, our eyes become tired, and we make mistakes that we do not notice. By removing yourself from your computer, your eyes can reset, and you will notice mistakes you didn't see before.

• If you are required to give you out your personal email, don't give out your actual one. Use a temporary email service to generate a fake email in less than a second and give that address to whoever wants your email. If you are sending confidential emails from your personal email account, then as few people as possible should have your personal email address.

• Remove any email addresses in your contacts list that you have not sent messages to in a long time or anyone you no longer talk to.

• Never send an email when you are in a rush. Plan ahead as much as possible and only send an email when you have time to thoroughly examine your message and double-check it before sending it off. Anything that we do in a rush is more likely to contain mistakes.