Overview
Protecting your schedule is essential for maintaining productivity and preventing burnout. The system provides automated tools to safeguard your time through focus periods, meeting buffers, and conflict resolution. By automatically blocking out deep work and ensuring proper transition times between meetings, you can maintain a balanced, manageable calendar without manual scheduling fatigue.
Blocking Focus Time
Single Focus Blocks
Focus periods are dedicated time blocks reserved for deep work, coding, writing, or strategic planning. To block a one-time focus session:
- Open the assistant and specify that you need focus time, mentioning a duration or activity (e.g., "Block 2 hours for deep work this afternoon").
- The system will automatically search your schedule for a free slot during your working hours (defaulting to 9:00 AM or the start of your workday) and create an opaque, busy-marked event.
- If no start time is specified, the system checks 30-minute intervals to find the earliest available opening.
Tip
If you want to search for a specific time, you can explicitly provide a start time (e.g., "Block focus time tomorrow at 10am for 90 minutes").
Recurring Focus Time
If you want regular, repeated deep work sessions:
- Use recurring scheduling phrases like "every weekday", "daily", or "weekly".
- Provide your specific purpose or activity (e.g., "Block 90 minutes of coding every weekday at 2pm").
- The system generates a repeating rule (RRULE) to reserve these slots continuously until your specified end date or occurrence limit.
Adding Meeting Buffers
Buffer Strategies
Back-to-back meetings can lead to mental fatigue and transition delays. When adding buffers, the system supports specific strategies depending on your phrasing and needs:
- Chains Only (
chains_only): Automatically adds buffers only when meetings are back-to-back (or separated by a gap smaller than your buffer duration). This is the default behavior when you don't explicitly mention "all" meetings. - All Meetings (
all): Unconditionally adds a buffer after every meeting in the specified date range. - Long Meetings (
long_meetings): Targets meetings longer than 45 minutes for buffer protection.
Important
If your request includes the word "all" anywhere (case-insensitive: all, ALL, All, or phrases like "all my meetings"), the system must use the 'all' strategy.
Buffer Application Methods
You can configure buffers using two different mechanisms:
- Shortening Meetings: Automatically trims the end time of your existing meetings by the buffer duration (e.g., shortening a 60-minute meeting to 50 minutes to create a 10-minute break).
- Creating Buffer Events: Inserts separate, gray-colored, transparent (free-status) transition blocks directly onto your calendar immediately following your meetings.
Conflict Resolution and Schedule Optimization
Conflict Checking and Scanning
When your calendar becomes crowded or overlaps occur, the system provides analytical tools to diagnose issues and suggest remedies:
- User Conflicts: You can check whether you are free during a specific time slot (e.g., "Am I free tomorrow from 3pm to 5pm?").
- Attendee Conflicts: You can check if other people have overlapping events during a time slot or existing meeting.
- Conflict Scanning: The system groups overlapping events chronologically so you can easily identify double-booked slots and decide whether to reschedule, decline, or ignore them.
Optimization Summary Table
| Feature / Tool | Primary Purpose | Key Options & Settings |
|---|---|---|
| Block Focus Time | Reserve single deep-work slots | Date, start time, duration (30–480 mins), title, description, conflict checking override |
| Recurring Focus Time | Create repeating deep-work sessions | Recurrence pattern (daily, weekdays, weekly, monthly, yearly), interval, days (byDay), exclusion dates |
| Buffer Time | Add transition breaks between meetings | Buffer duration (5–30 mins), strategy (all, chains_only, long_meetings), createEvents toggle, dry-run preview |
| Schedule Optimization | Analyze meeting density and fragmentation | Date ranges, working hours configuration |
Warning
When executing bulk operations or clearing calendar ranges, always preview changes using a dry run first to prevent accidental modifications to important events.