Huh, this is great to know. Personally, I’m the opposite, I find it annoying when people ask to meet and don’t include a calendly link or similar, I am slightly annoyed by the time it takes to write a reply email and generate a calendar invite, and the often greater overall back-and-forth and attention drain from having the issue linger.
Curious how anti-Calendly people feel about the “include a calendly link + ask people to send timeslots if they prefer” strategy.
My feelings are both that it’s a great app and yet sometimes I’m irritated when the other person sends me theirs.
If I introspect on the times when I feel the irritation, I notice I feel like they are shirking some work. Previously we were working together to have a meeting, but now I’m doing the work to have a meeting with the other person, where it’s my job and not theirs to make it happen.
I think I expect some of of the following asymmetries in responsibility to happen with a much higher frequency than with old-fashioned-coordination:
I will book a time, then in a few days they will tell me actually the time doesn’t work for them and I should pick again (this is a world where I had made plans around the meeting time and they hadn’t)
I will book a time, and just before the meeting they will email to say they hadn’t realised when I’d booked it and actually they can’t make it and need to reschedule, and they will feel this is calendly’s fault far more than theirs
I will book a time, and they won’t show up or will show up late and feel that they don’t hold much responsibility for this, thinking of it as a ‘technical failure’ on behalf of calendly.
All of these are quite irritating and feel like I’m the one holding my schedule open for them, right up until it turns out they can’t make it.
I think I might be happier if there was an explicit and expected part of the process where the other person confirms they are aware of the meeting and will show up, either by emailing to say “I’ll see you at <time>!” or if they have to click “going” to the calendar invitation and I would get a notification saying “They confirmed”, and only then was it ‘officially happening’.
Having written this out, I may start pinging people for confirmation after filling out their calendlys...
Thanks for writing these out. I don’t remember people having cancelled calendly times on me, so I assume it hasn’t happened at a higher rate than other types of meetings. Really useful to know that that’s typically the case, since it understandably puts people off them.
I don’t want to claim it happens regularly, but enough that it’s become salient to me that I may spend all this time planning for and around the meeting and then have it be wasted effort, such that there’s some consistent irritation cost to me interacting with calendlys.
But now that I’ve put in to words some of my concerns, I think I’ll generally like interacting with calendly more now, as I’ll notice when I’m feeling this particular worry and more pro-actively deal with it. As I said, I think it’s a great tool and I’m glad it exists.
I think I might be happier if there was an explicit and expected part of the process where the other person confirms they are aware of the meeting and will show up, either by emailing to say “I’ll see you at <time>!” or if they have to click “going” to the calendar invitation and I would get a notification saying “They confirmed”, and only then was it ‘officially happening’.
Yeah, even as an unabashed Calendly-lover I think these things would definitely be improvements. I’ve thought before that it seems weird that the person whose calendly it is is set to “going” by default, which means the person who booked the time will by default only know that the other person received an email, not that they saw it or plan to be there.
For this reason, when people book a slot with me, I try to always send a message like “I’ll see you at <time>!” But I think it’d be better to have a stronger norm around this, and/or have the person not be set to “going” until they actively click “going”.
(It also looks like your comment has gotten a downvote, which seems surprising to me. My small plug for calendly has turned into a much larger and spicier thread than expected.)
Don’t feel great about that, for the same reasons as before—it prioritizes your comfort and schedule over mine, which is kind of rude if you’re asking me for a favour.
But like other people, I don’t necessarily endorse these feelings, and they’re not super strong. It’s fine for people to keep sending me calendly links.
Huh, this is great to know. Personally, I’m the opposite, I find it annoying when people ask to meet and don’t include a calendly link or similar, I am slightly annoyed by the time it takes to write a reply email and generate a calendar invite, and the often greater overall back-and-forth and attention drain from having the issue linger.
Curious how anti-Calendly people feel about the “include a calendly link + ask people to send timeslots if they prefer” strategy.
My feelings are both that it’s a great app and yet sometimes I’m irritated when the other person sends me theirs.
If I introspect on the times when I feel the irritation, I notice I feel like they are shirking some work. Previously we were working together to have a meeting, but now I’m doing the work to have a meeting with the other person, where it’s my job and not theirs to make it happen.
I think I expect some of of the following asymmetries in responsibility to happen with a much higher frequency than with old-fashioned-coordination:
I will book a time, then in a few days they will tell me actually the time doesn’t work for them and I should pick again (this is a world where I had made plans around the meeting time and they hadn’t)
I will book a time, and just before the meeting they will email to say they hadn’t realised when I’d booked it and actually they can’t make it and need to reschedule, and they will feel this is calendly’s fault far more than theirs
I will book a time, and they won’t show up or will show up late and feel that they don’t hold much responsibility for this, thinking of it as a ‘technical failure’ on behalf of calendly.
All of these are quite irritating and feel like I’m the one holding my schedule open for them, right up until it turns out they can’t make it.
I think I might be happier if there was an explicit and expected part of the process where the other person confirms they are aware of the meeting and will show up, either by emailing to say “I’ll see you at <time>!” or if they have to click “going” to the calendar invitation and I would get a notification saying “They confirmed”, and only then was it ‘officially happening’.
Having written this out, I may start pinging people for confirmation after filling out their calendlys...
Thanks for writing these out. I don’t remember people having cancelled calendly times on me, so I assume it hasn’t happened at a higher rate than other types of meetings. Really useful to know that that’s typically the case, since it understandably puts people off them.
You’re welcome :)
I don’t want to claim it happens regularly, but enough that it’s become salient to me that I may spend all this time planning for and around the meeting and then have it be wasted effort, such that there’s some consistent irritation cost to me interacting with calendlys.
But now that I’ve put in to words some of my concerns, I think I’ll generally like interacting with calendly more now, as I’ll notice when I’m feeling this particular worry and more pro-actively deal with it. As I said, I think it’s a great tool and I’m glad it exists.
Oh, actually that makes me feel better too!
Yeah, even as an unabashed Calendly-lover I think these things would definitely be improvements. I’ve thought before that it seems weird that the person whose calendly it is is set to “going” by default, which means the person who booked the time will by default only know that the other person received an email, not that they saw it or plan to be there.
For this reason, when people book a slot with me, I try to always send a message like “I’ll see you at <time>!” But I think it’d be better to have a stronger norm around this, and/or have the person not be set to “going” until they actively click “going”.
(It also looks like your comment has gotten a downvote, which seems surprising to me. My small plug for calendly has turned into a much larger and spicier thread than expected.)
Don’t feel great about that, for the same reasons as before—it prioritizes your comfort and schedule over mine, which is kind of rude if you’re asking me for a favour.
But like other people, I don’t necessarily endorse these feelings, and they’re not super strong. It’s fine for people to keep sending me calendly links.