Detailed Guide to Calendars in Motion

Streamlining scheduling with Motion involves leveraging three distinct calendar layers: Accounts, My Calendars, and Frequently Met With. Motion's AI seamlessly organizes tasks around your My Calendars events, while events from “Frequently Met With” calendars remain visible but do not affect this scheduling process.

Illustration of calendar layers in the Settings tab

To get the most out of Motion's features, it's vital to understand the three layers of calendar connectivity: Accounts, My Calendars, and Frequently Met With. Each layer serves a different purpose, contributing to a more efficient and schedule management.

1. Accounts: Your Personalized Main Calendar

A calendar account in Motion is the primary calendar associated with your Google or Microsoft account. For instance, if your Google account is under [e-mail], it will generate a calendar that is directly tied to this email.

The “Accounts” section in Motion includes any calendars that you own and directly control. You have the ability to designate one of these calendars as your "main calendar", which serves as the default host for any events or meetings you schedule within Motion. This main calendar selection helps Motion understand which of your schedules should be prioritized in its functionality.

Example:

• Suppose you're a user named Emily, who adds two of her email accounts to Motion, [e-mail] and [e-mail].

• Emily chooses [e-mail] as her main calendar because this is her professional account where she schedules most of her work meetings and tasks.

• When Emily schedules an event in Motion, it automatically defaults to [e-mail] as the host.

• This also applies to Motion's [booking] feature, a tool similar to Calendly. When Emily shares her booking link with colleagues or clients, any meetings booked will default to her professional email as the host.

2. My Calendars: Extending Your Ownership

“My Calendars” includes all the calendars in your Accounts section, as well as any other calendars within those accounts but do not wish to set as your main calendar. The calendars in this section have a distinct advantage: while they may not be your main calendar, you can manually set them as the host for any specific events.

Example:

• Let's go back to Emily. While [e-mail] is her main calendar, she also has her personal calendar [e-mail] listed under “My Calendars.”

• Emily decides to schedule a family reunion. Although her main calendar is her professional one, she wants this particular event to be hosted under her personal email.

• In this case, Emily can manually set [e-mail] as the host for the family reunion while scheduling it in Motion, even though it's not her main calendar.

3. Frequently Met With: Coordinating with Others

The “Frequently Met With” section is specifically designed for calendars that are shared with you. This feature allows you to view the schedules of people you frequently interact with, providing a simple and efficient way to coordinate schedules without affecting your own.

Example:

• Emily frequently collaborates with a colleague named Jill. Jill has shared her calendar, [e-mail], with Emily.

• Emily can then add Jill’s calendar to her “Frequently Met With” section. This allows her to toggle Jill’s calendar on or off, providing her with visibility into Jill’s schedule when planning meetings or tasks.

• However, Jill’s schedule does not impact Emily’s auto-scheduled tasks or events.

Harnessing AI Scheduling Power in Motion

The AI-powered auto-scheduling capability is a standout feature of Motion that leverages the different layers of calendar connectivity. It takes into account the calendars you own (those in “Accounts” and “My Calendars”) and schedules your tasks around those events.

Auto-Scheduling with “My Calendars” and “Accounts”

When it comes to “My Calendars” and “Accounts,” the AI treats all the events in these calendars as significant. It then schedules your tasks around these events to avoid any conflicts.

Example:

• Continuing with Emily’s example, let's say she has a work meeting from 1 PM to 2 PM in her [e-mail] calendar (main calendar in “Accounts”) and a doctor's appointment from 4 PM to 5 PM in her [e-mail] calendar “'My Calendars”).

• Emily also has a task "Prepare presentation" which is to be auto-scheduled on the same day.

• The AI scheduling algorithm ensures that the "Prepare presentation" task is not set during the time of her meeting or her doctor's appointment.

• It could, for example, schedule this task from 2:30 PM to 3:30 PM, thereby ensuring Emily’s tasks and events do not clash.

Auto-Scheduling with “Frequently Met With”

When it comes to calendars in the “Frequently Met With” section, the AI algorithm works differently. It does not schedule your tasks around these events, maintaining your schedule's integrity while still providing insight into others' schedules.

Example:

• Suppose Emily has added Jill’s calendar to her “Frequently Met With” section. Jill schedules a team meeting with another colleague, Sarah, from 2 PM to 3 PM.

• Emily can see this meeting on Jill’s calendar when she toggles it on. However, this doesn't mean Emily is involved in the meeting.

• As a result, Motion's auto-scheduling algorithm treats this meeting differently. If Emily has a task "Prepare presentation" set to be auto-scheduled on the same day, the task won't be rescheduled because of Jill’s team meeting.

• This makes sense because Emily isn't part of Jill’s meeting with Sarah.

• For example, even with Jill’s meeting visible on her screen, Emily’s task might still be scheduled from 2:30 PM to 3:30 PM.

• This ensures that her tasks and events remain unaffected by events she's not a part of, even if they show up in her “Frequently Met With” view.

• By doing this, Motion keeps Emily’s personal schedule and tasks uninterrupted, allowing her to work efficiently without the need to adjust for others’ schedules she's not directly involved with.

In the illustration provided above, Jill's calendar is toggled on in the “Frequently Met With” section. However, her events are not impeding Emily's task auto-scheduling, as depicted by the orange events overlapping with Emily's tasks and events.