Shared calendar

A shared calendar is a single calendar — most often Google Calendar or Outlook — that the whole team accesses with appropriate permissions: read-only for some, editing rights for others. It replaces the paper notebook and individual diaries, classic sources of double bookings and forgotten appointments. Everyone's availability is visible in real time, on mobile and desktop alike.

It's also the non-negotiable prerequisite for automatic booking: a system that schedules on your behalf must write into a single source of truth. If a calendar exists but isn't kept up to date, automation becomes dangerous — an appointment placed on an already-taken slot destroys more trust than ten missed calls. Before automating, get the calendar in order.