Immediately suggest times

• don't just say "do you want to meet?" or "when's good for you?". As soon as you know you want to have a meeting, suggest some times. You can reduce the tedium of scheduling by getting straight to the point.
• if one person being scheduled with is significantly busier than everyone else then it might make sense for the busy person to suggest times as it'll be more likely that they'll pick times that work for others than someone who is mostly free picking the times.

Suggest 2-5 slots/times

• too few slots and you risk people not being available for any of them, too many and it becomes annoying to pick a time.
• I'd say this one doesn't apply when scheduling a lowkey friend hangout.
• the sweet spot is probably 3 options.

If possible, suggest times that are between 36h and 2 weeks in the future

• too soon and you wont be able to hear back from them in time, too far out and something more important might come up and they'll have to reschedule.
• this scales with the importance of the meeting. If it's a very important meeting being scheduled then you could schedule it further out without fear someone will have something else that comes up.

Pencil-in all the suggested times into your calendar until you lock one in

• it's an asshole move to suggest a meeting time option to someone, they go for it, and then you have to be like 'sorry, I scheduled something else instead'.

Reply asap to all the back and forth scheduling messages

• it's respectful to get the scheduling process finished quickly so everyone can free-up the penciled-in dates that didn't get selected.
• if you're being scheduled with, and none of the suggested times work for you, it's more efficient and shares the burden to reply with some suggested times of your own. Don't just wait for one person to do all the work of suggesting times.

Actually show up and be on time!

• It is quite disrespectful to go through the whole arduous process of scheduling and then be late or not show up.
• don't try to change the date/time <24h beforehand unless it's a legit emergency.
• if you do need to reschedule less than 24 hours before the meeting, it's probably best to call the meeting attendees.

Scheduling with people is work

• and that work ought be shared/balanced/compensated somehow.

There are exceptions to all these rules

You also could just use one of those meeting scheduling web tools

• Crab Fit is a handy way to let people pick what times work for them and it's cool because it's open source.
• or you could use an app that lets people schedule directly into your calendar like Cal.com which is also open source :)

Last updated: January 8th, 2026