Adjacency-only booking

[marshallthomas47]

Is your proposal related to a problem?

Yes. Current scheduling tools force me to choose between two bad options:

• Scattered meetings throughout the day: Destroys focus time, creates constant context switching, and doesn't protect important time for other activities
• Manual calendar blocking: Time-consuming and requires constant maintenance to protect focus blocks

I want to batch all my meetings together to preserve large, uninterrupted blocks for deep work and the rest of life. However, existing scheduling tools (including Cal.com) show all free time slots to bookers, which results in meetings scattered across my calendar even when I already have blocks of time (meetings) that I know will be disrupted.

The core problem: There's no way to enforce "meetings can only be scheduled adjacent to existing meetings" as a scheduling constraint. Tools like Reclaim.ai are actually too complex when adjaceny-only is such a simple solution to this problem. The adjacency rule puts me fully in control of my schedule while still allowing others to book.

Many people want the opposite (buffers between meetings), but I'm convinced I'm not alone in wanting to block together meetings. I'd tell everyone I know about a tool that does this, if it existed.

Describe the solution you'd like

Feature: "Adjacent-Only Scheduling" mode for event types
Add an optional setting to event types: "Only show slots adjacent to existing calendar events"

When enabled for an event type, the availability engine would filter slots to only show times that:

• Start immediately after an existing busy event ends, OR
• End immediately before an existing busy event starts

Configuration options:

• Adjacency tolerance: maybe a narrow window between 0-30 minutes adjacency to existing meetings
• Event filter: Adjacent to "any busy event" OR "only meetings" (exclude focus time blocks, personal events, etc.)
• Empty day behavior: "Show no slots" OR "Allow first meeting of the day"

Describe alternatives you've considered

Reclaim.ai and Motion try to solve this problem but these are oversolutions. I've really tried. They maybe get me 60% of the way there. I even looked into making a custom solution myself, but I'd rather not.

Additional context

If you build this feature, I will switch to Cal.com and I'll tell all my work colleagues and friends about it.

[linear]

CAL-6972

[rishi-rj-s]

Hi Marshall, the schedule you have in mind - does it goes along the lines 👇
Instead of the user's freely choosing the time -> it fills something like a queue.
Example -> the time slot's from 10am-1pm (dates should be flexible, or upon availability), each person can book an hour or so, only incrementally, and not anywhere within the period? (The 1st person can only book for 10-11am, 2nd person 11-12, like so. The first person can't choose 12-1)

[marshallthomas47]

Thanks @rishi-rj-s - that sounds a bit different to me, and I wouldn't use such a feature. I think in what you are describing, one booking would be possible in any given available window, which is too permissive. In what I'm requesting, windows wouldn't be shown for booking on a user's scheduling link (within that user's specified availability) unless the user already has a meeting in that time block.

Example:

• Thursday, the 8th, I have a 1-2 PM meeting on my calendar that I scheduled. Anyone with my half hour scheduling link could book from 12:30 - 1:00 PM or 2:00 - 2:30 PM on that day.
• The following Thursday, the 15th, I have no afternoon meetings on my calendar. Anyone with my scheduling link has no option to book that afternoon, because there is no adjacency.

This prioritizes and defends my focus time in a simple way.

[rishi-rj-s]

Hi @Ryukemeister , is it a bad idea if I start working on this feature now, or should I wait until whether it gets approved?

[Ryukemeister]

hi @rishi-rj-s, even though the feature request raised by @marshallthomas47 is valid and makes sense there's still lots of unknows here, eg: is there some kind of existing workaround currently in the web app that can achieve something like this or close to this, if not then we need scope out whats the best way to have a feature like this; i'm not even sure where this would go priority wise and if we want to add it in our current roadmap or keep it for the future. hence, I would say it's best to wait and have @CarinaWolli take a look at this, and if she approves this feature then you can start working on it.

[rishi-rj-s]

I'll research a bit on the platform and submit a proposal on whether the feature is a necessity or if there's a workaround.

[marshallthomas47]

Thanks @rishi-rj-s @Ryukemeister and @CarinaWolli ! I'd be thrilled if you do decide to develop this feature.

I did search through the cal.com help to see if I could set up something like this. Maybe I missed some settings but it didn't seem possible in the web app.

[CarinaWolli]

Thank you for the feature request! At the moment this is low priority and needs some planning before we can open it up for work. I’ll keep the issue open with the Needs approval label to see if there’s more interest

[marshallthomas47]

Thanks for considering the feature, and I'm sorry to hear it isn't a priority :(.

What kind of demand indicators would cal.com find compelling to build this feature? I know I'm just one customer pledging to use your service, you probably want to know it would be valued by many.

• Would a user story be helpful here? I'm imagining this will be sought by busy professionals (consultants, executives) who are protective of their focus time. It might feel to your team like the opposite of the typical use case in which people make as much time as possible available for booking.
• Would it be helpful if I shared all of the competitors of cal.com I've checked for this feature or something close to it?

Barring feature development, do you have suggestions for a plugin, custom solution, or other "hack" that could accomplish this functionality so I can benefit?