Glossary

Calendar coordination

Six emails to schedule a 30-minute call. Calendar coordination is the name for those six emails.

In short

Calendar coordination is the process of arranging a meeting across two or more people's schedules: checking availability, proposing times, handling counter-proposals and time zones, confirming a slot, and sending the calendar invite. Calendar coordination is done by hand over email, with booking links, with shared free/busy calendars, or by an assistant, human or AI.

The steps in calendar coordination

  1. 1
    Check availability

    Look at your own calendar, and the other person's if you can see their free/busy status.

  2. 2
    Propose times

    Offer two or three specific slots, with the time zone written out.

  3. 3
    Resolve the reply

    They pick one, suggest another, or add a third person who has their own constraints.

  4. 4
    Confirm and invite

    Send the calendar invite with the meeting link, agenda, and the right attendees.

Common calendar coordination methods

Email back-and-forth works for anyone but takes the most messages. Booking links let the other person pick from your open slots, which is fast but pushes the work onto them, and some people find it abrupt for senior or external contacts. Shared calendars inside one company let you see free/busy directly, but not across organizations. Assistants read the request, check the calendar, and propose times in a normal reply.

Calendar coordination vs. scheduling software

Scheduling software is one tool for coordination, usually a booking page. Coordination is the whole task, including the parts a booking page doesn't cover: the colleague who has to be included, the client in another time zone, the meeting that needs moving twice.

Synced handles the email version of this. When a message asks to meet, Synced checks your connected Google Calendar, picks open slots, and drafts a reply proposing them for your approval. The manual approach is in how to schedule meetings over email.

Questions

Frequently asked.

How many times should you offer when scheduling a meeting over email?

Two or three specific slots across different days is enough for most meetings. Include the time zone, and hold the times loosely on your calendar until the other person replies.

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