Mikaela Shafer values spending time with her friends, and if that means booking a flea market day three months in advance, she considers it a small price to pay.

For a while, Shafer, 38, and her friends found themselves in the throes of schedule coordination hell. One person would attempt to make plans on a particular day, but another couldn’t make it. Somebody else would offer a new date, but that one was no good either. They’d go back and forth a few more times until the group inevitably gave up, no plans on the horizon. Shafer wanted to see her friends, of course, but her grueling schedule as a small business owner, copywriter for a nonprofit, artist, and mother made it difficult to find the time.

For her professional obligations, Shafer used the scheduling tool Calendly, which allows clients to directly book time on her calendar without the “When are you free?” discussion. Why couldn’t she do the same with her friends? So she made a second Calendly specifically for hangouts, linked to her respective work and personal calendars so she doesn’t double-book. She even modified the appointment page to include suggested hang activities, such as grabbing coffee or thrifting.

When she’s in need of face time with a particular friend, or group of friends, Shafer sends them the link. Sometimes they’ll claim time on her calendar without her needing to ask. All they have to do is pick a date and a time.

“My friends usually book things out a couple weeks in advance because they’re also really busy,” Shafer says. “We were trying to plan a vacation, and they booked the vacation time based on my calendar app — all the way in January.”

Between the demands of work, family, and solo activities, Americans increasingly feel strapped for time. Many people live and die by their calendars, hardly finding a moment to breathe amid all the meetings, the commuting, the workouts, the playdates, the appointments, the scrolling, the self-care. Finding a few unclaimed hours for socializing can feel like a luxury, one that might need to be planned weeks or even months in advance. Like Shafer, these super-schedulers coordinate time with friends far into the future, either out of necessity or preference. For the friends on the other side, seeing a confidante once a quarter can feel like a slight, but for super-schedulers, it’s not personal; it’s time management.

‘I don’t have time’

The most common reason people tend to make appointments with friends months in advance is perhaps the........

© Vox