Your calendar doesn't need a scheduler

I've been thinking about why scheduling tools feel broken.

Not slow. Not ugly. Just... off.

I think I finally figured it out.

Every scheduling tool on the market does the same thing: shows your availability and lets people book it. They all answer the same question: "When can this person meet?"

But that's the wrong question.

The right question is: "Should this person get my time at all?"

The Problem With Displaying Availability

When you share a scheduling link, you're essentially saying: "Here's my calendar. Pick a slot."

The other person sees open space and books it. They don't know you blocked off Thursday afternoon for deep work. They don't know you've already had three "quick calls" this week. They don't know their request is the fourth partnership pitch you've received this month.

All they see is: available.

And because you made it available, you feel obligated to honor it.

This is the core problem. Current tools make booking frictionless for the requester. But friction isn't always bad. Sometimes friction is protection. Sometimes friction is exactly what you need.

What a Gatekeeper Actually Does

Think about what a human assistant would do.

Someone emails asking for 30 minutes of your time. A good assistant doesn't just check your calendar. They evaluate: Who is this person? What do they want? Does this match what you've said matters?

Then they make a call. Book it, decline it politely, or flag it for your decision.

This is judgment. This is what scheduling tools don't do.

Three Scenarios

Here's how judgment changes everything:

Scenario 1: The Cold Pitch

Someone submits a meeting request. They want to "explore synergies" and "discuss potential collaboration." No specific context. Vague language. Classic cold outreach.

A gatekeeper recognizes the pattern. It doesn't book the meeting. It doesn't even send a decline email (which creates its own back-and-forth). It simply filters the request and tells you: "I didn't let this through. Here's why."

You never had to see it. You never had to decide. You never had to feel guilty about saying no.

Scenario 2: The Paying Customer

Someone else reaches out. "I just purchased your product and have a few setup questions."

A gatekeeper understands context. This person already trusts you enough to pay. They need help. This is exactly who should get your time. The meeting is booked immediately, at a slot that works for both of you.

No delay for the right person. No friction where friction shouldn't exist.

Scenario 3: The Gray Area

A third request comes in. Someone wants to discuss a potential partnership. They're from a company you've heard of, but the details are unclear.

A gatekeeper doesn't auto-reject this (it might be real). But it doesn't auto-accept either (it might be a waste). Instead, it escalates: "This person wants to partner, but I don't have enough context. Your call."

You decide. The system handles the rest.

The Weight You Stop Carrying

There's something that's hard to explain until you've experienced it.

Every meeting request that lands in your inbox creates a small psychological weight. Not the meeting itself. The decision. The evaluation. The guilt of potentially saying no.

The mental energy of figuring out if this is worth your time.

These micro-decisions accumulate. By Friday, you're not just tired from meetings. You're tired from all the decisions around meetings.

When something else handles the filtering, the booking, the declining, that weight disappears. Not because you have fewer meetings (though you might). Because you're no longer the one standing at the gate all day.

Rangan Chatterjee, in Happy Mind Happy Life, writes about "time famine" as one of the core stressors of modern life. It's not just about having too little time. It's about the constant cognitive load of managing it.

A scheduler adds to that load. A gatekeeper removes it.

Not a Better Tool. A Different Category.

This is why comparing intervals to scheduling tools misses the point.

A scheduler displays your availability. A gatekeeper protects it.

Think about it in terms of money. If your hourly rate is $100 (conservative for most founders, executives, investors), one rejected 30-minute meeting that wasn't going anywhere is $50 back in your pocket.

One hour-long "quick sync" that didn't need to happen is $100. And that's before you count the context-switching, the prep time, the recovery time on the other side.

Most people take 3-5 meetings per week they shouldn't. Do that math over a year.

But the real value isn't even the math. It's that you stop being the gatekeeper.

You set the rules. The AI enforces them. You get your time back and the mental bandwidth you didn't realize you were spending.

What's Next

We're building this. It's called intervals.

The AI is already executing time policies for early users: who gets booked immediately, who gets filtered out, what gets escalated for your decision. Your rules. Enforced automatically.

Your time is not a public resource. Now you have something that actually enforces that.