Starting this week, I began a new job. Along with paper work and the normal beginning-a-new-job routine, came my new computer setup. For the most part, everything went fine and it was more a matter of locating and trying to remember all the little programs I use and installing them. That’s the easy part. The thing that always manages to trip me up is the settings I like for each program. Even that went well until I came to Outlook.

I’m sure everyone knows and loves Outlook’s many options and the many places they hide. Most settings are at least 2-3 clicks deep in pop-ups. What I wanted to change was no different but finding it turned out to be a pain.

All I wanted to do was change the setting so that each time I clicked on an email, it gets marked it as “Read” right away. Seems simple enough, right? Well, I clicked on almost every combination before I found the winner:

"Tools" menu option -> "Options..." -> "Other" tab -> "Reading Pane" button

Simply select "Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane" and insert 0 into the "seconds before marking item as read" box. Click "OK" and you’re done.