A Calendar Tool to Save Time for Creativity
Calendly eliminates back-and-forth emails that waste everyone's time
You’re reading the Wonder Tools newsletter. I’m Jeremy Caplan. I post about tools to make remote work more enjoyable and efficient. Recent posts covered the best tool for creating Web sites, why Airtable is useful, a toolkit of positivity apps, & an amazing free transcription tool.
Let me save you some time. Use Calendly.
Stop trading emails about when to meet. Just let people pick a time they like that’s available on your calendar. You’ll both be better off.
It’s simple to use. It took me about 20 minutes to set up.
You start by connecting Calendly to your calendar. It works with Outlook, iCloud, Google Calendar or Exchange. Then decide when you want to be available for meetings. You can set different periods of availability depending on the meeting type.
Illustration by Vijay Verma
You might designate certain hours as available for clients and others for colleagues. Or open up 15-minute check-in slots as well as one-hour coffee spots.
The nice thing is that once you’ve set it up, Calendly takes care of itself. Use your calendar as you normally would.
Calendly will only show times as available for meetings if you don’t have anything else scheduled then. So you’re never double-booked.
When someone books a meeting, it gets added to your calendar automatically. Both attendees get an email confirmation and then an optional reminder before the meeting.
You can have people answer questions when they book a time, such as what they’d like to talk about, or whether there’s anything you should look at in advance.
You can also link it to your Zoom or other meeting software so you both have the meeting link right in your calendar, without separate emails about that.
A few bonus features I love about Calendly:
You can let people book meeting lengths of whatever length you’d like. On my calendar I usually have 15 and 30-minute slots and sometimes lunch or coffee spots.
You can also use it for group meetings. I set up an open group event for 1pm ET this Friday, May 29, for example. Join me in taking a free lunch break to explore new digital collaboration tools like Miro and Mural together over Zoom. Or pick Friday, June 5 at 1pm. To join on either date, sign up on this Calendly page.
Calendly is free for one calendar and one event type. I pay $8 monthly to use different kinds of appointment slots. You can embed your Calendly on a site or include a link in your email signature or anywhere else. Here’s a 90-second video explainer.
Other scheduling services abound. Whenisgood.net is a quick free alternative. Youcanbook.me and acuityscheduling.com are popular paid apps with free trials. Doodle is useful for groups voting on a meeting time, and now handles one-on-one meetings too.
If you have a work or school Google Calendar account, you can use that as a free way to set up reservable appointment slots. And I like MixMax, an email plug-in that has a built-in scheduling tool. If you’re into artificial intelligence, check out x.ai. It includes a bot assistant that handles scheduling when you CC it on your scheduling emails.
Having used Calendly since 2013 to arrange hundreds of meetings, I’m happy with it and it’s what I recommend. The design is great and it’s easy to use both for you and the person booking a time. Hit reply if you have questions or a scheduling trick to share.
p.s. I wrote a Medium post this week about a new 100-day online program we’re launching at the Newmark J-School in January for those aiming to develop sustainable new newsletters, podcasts, niche sites & other projects. Sign up for program updates or reply with questions.