Somebody Make This: An "Anti-Calendar" for friends, because trying to schedule hangouts is exhausting.
Does anyone else feel completely burnt out by the "When are you free?" text message dance? I feel like society has defaulted to "I am available unless my calendar says I'm busy." This causes me so much anxiety because I constantly have to make up excuses to…
Does anyone else feel completely burnt out by the "When are you free?" text message dance? I feel like society has defaulted to "I am available unless my calendar says I'm busy." This causes me so much anxiety because I constantly have to make up excuses to decline invitations when I'm just too mentally exhausted to hang out, even if my calendar is technically clear. Existing social apps (like Howbout) try to solve this by making you sync your Google/Work calendar with your friends so they can find overlaps. I absolutely hate this. I don't want my friends seeing my work schedule, and I don't want an app managing my life. The Idea: I want an "Anti-Calendar" app. By default, the app assumes I am strictly off-limits and busy 24/7. When I actually have the mental energy to be social, I open the app. It just shows a blank slate (kind of like picking a theater seat). I tap a few 2-hour blocks and say "I am open for business during these times." I can then post a beautifully designed link to my Instagram Story or drop it in a group chat. My friends can click it (without even downloading the app) and just "claim" a slot. No polling. No syncing data. No negotiation fatigue. Just: "I have the energy to hang out on Saturday at 2 PM. First one to claim it gets it." Would anyone actually use this? I am a developer and genuinely considering building this if there is enough interest, but I want to know if I'm the only one who feels this type of scheduling fatigue.
Collected discussion
www.doodle.com But perhaps you can make it more hangout oriented
I am thinking this app to make on a personal basis
The app I'm thinking is not calander. But it acts a a beacon. It pushes notification only when the user says "available"
That’s exactly the functionality I’m describing, it just lives on your calendar. So you could presumably make an event for tomorrow titled “I’m free, let’s hang out” from 12am to 4pm and make it an open event. As soon as you create the event it pushes notifications to your friends who are on the app and they can rsvp yes and then you discuss right in the event what to do. What do you have in mind for the UI/Ux?
Yea I have mixed feelings about the whole scheduling and “I’m available unless I tell you otherwise” dance, especially as a Hispanic. Cause much of what I grew up with was exactly that (what I call the “default yes” culture) and it can be exhausting or weird to push back. On the other hand, I do kinda love the Howbout approach in terms of trying to make calendars a more powerful social tool. With that in mind, in case you’re curious/ want inspiration I essentially made a calendar app (ironically) that can do exactly what you’re describing. You can share your schedule with people just like Howbout OR you can just use it as your regular calendar and when you feel likea hangout make a beautiful “open event” page right from the app that lets people know “hey, I’m Free” or “hey I’ll be at XYZ concert”. It will notify them and appear on their map (yes, it has a map) if they have the app. If they don’t, you can also share the event page in the group chat like you mentioned. Would love to hear your thoughts. App is conmigo.io
I made this idea. I didnt pursue because anyone can build things and i ran out of time to dedicate to it. I am going to open-source all the work I did-- then get people who are interested to build into it, I'll host the local first version of it and can charge if people want to sync. It will be hosted ta-co.ai Its not finished but the idea remains. I am working on turning it into an OSS project but need to split the repo into a new one (its on a giant monorepo attached to my other site). Hopefully people want to work on the apps and build and self host etc... Theres just a few things technology wise that would require workers for a calendar, so people have to self host... requires a copy of the data, but users can self host. Again its a WIP. Exists in a way... its a good idea!
I actually recently had a similar idea and made a very basic Python script for this. However, my idea was for a group of people who all needed to find an "availability collision" (when everyone is available at the same time), rather than making a request for others to possibly accept. The code is here: https://gitlab.com/citeclimb-group/schedule_availability_collision_finder
I see your vision. I think we shouldn't be afraid to gently reject our friends. Technology placating confrontations of any kind won't help our species in the long run. If I were your friend I would offer an idea to you weeks if not months ahead (not hours ahead). If it's not your thing or you're busy, no harm no foul (or "No shade, no tea" as the young people say).