I was running three calendars, and client calls kept landing on doctor’s appointments because my work calendar said I was “available.” Four peers I interviewed had the same problem. They didn’t need better availability detection. They needed boundaries.
What I did
- Flipped the model: define a weekly template of work, family, and personal blocks first, and events can only book into the right one.
- Made setup a wizard, not a settings page, with tap-to-place, color-coded blocks finished in one sitting.
- Let the template say no, so declining a “free” slot felt like policy, not guilt.
Results
| Under 5 minutes | 4 of 4 testers | Faster decisions |
|---|---|---|
| Wizard setup | Completed it | Across three conflict scenarios |
One tester summed it up: “It’s not me saying no, it’s my schedule saying that time is already allocated.”