🚀 NEW Priorities are here! Unlock the update for your account here. Your UI might look slightly different as we update our help docs for the new system – check out the Priorities overview to learn more.
Reclaim automatically schedules and reschedules events on your calendar, so you don't have to manually adjust your calendar when conflicts come up.
From the priority level you set for all your events, scheduling rules for how you want smart events to get booked, to availability on your calendar around meetings and other commitments, as well as upcoming deadlines for Tasks – Reclaim uses smart AI scheduling to make intelligent decisions so your most important items get done.
Reclaim has a variety of different variables that it considers when automatically building out your productive week. Let's take a look at how Reclaim automatically manages your schedule so you can stay focused on the things that matter.
How Reclaim auto-schedules events with Priorities
Reclaim allows you to assign priority levels to both smart Reclaim events and non-Reclaim events (like meetings created in Google Calendar) so you can make time for your most important meetings and focus work sessions in the workweek.
You can set the priority level for your Habits, Tasks, Smart 1:1s, Scheduling Links, and even non-Reclaim created Google Calendar events from Critical (P1) to Low priority (P4) to inform Reclaim of what matters most when time gets tight. As your calendar fills up, higher-priority items can overbook lower-priority Habits, Tasks, and Smart 1:1s to make sure they get done.
Priority levels overview:
Critical (P1): Reclaim will schedule Critical items before any other events, and can overbook lower-priority items as your calendar books up.
High priority (P2): High priority events will be prioritized before medium and low priority events, and can be overbooked by critical events.
Medium priority (P3): Medium priority events will be prioritized before low priority events, and can be overbooked by medium-critical priority events.
Low priority (P4): Low priority events will be prioritized last, around your availability, and can be overbooked by higher-priority items.
Your Critical (P1) Smart 1:1s and Habits will always take top billing, and Reclaim auto-schedules the rest of your events by weighing priority and due date – intelligently ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
You can learn more about how Reclaim's prioritization system works in the Priorities overview help doc.
How Reclaim considers your availability
Reclaim uses your Priorities to book events on the calendar around your availability and your already scheduled higher-priority events.
Additionally, Reclaim's AI scheduler will also consider your customized Scheduling Hours when booking events to ensure that your Personal, Working, and Meeting events are booked when you want them to be. Learn more about setting your default and custom Scheduling Hours in this doc.
How Reclaim auto-schedules smart events
When you create smart Reclaim events like Habits, Tasks, and Smart 1:1s, you can set custom 'scheduling rules' for exactly how and when you want to book those events on your calendar in the future.
You can set scheduling rules around your preferences, including:
Priority: The priority level you want to defend the event at around other items.
Duration: How long you want the event to schedule for.
Frequency: How often you want to make time for the event.
Hours: The Scheduling Hours during which you want the event to schedule.
Starting: When you want Reclaim to start booking the event on your calendar.
Due date: When to schedule Task events by so they're done before deadlines.
Reclaim will follow these rules when scheduling your smart events, and will automatically update events if you change these scheduling rules for existing Habits, Tasks, or Smart 1:1s.
If smart events have the same priority level – Reclaim will prioritize auto-scheduling your Smart 1:1s first, Habits second, and Tasks third, based on your availability. Tasks with the same priority level will schedule according to the soonest due date.
Learn more about creating smart events and how they get prioritized in your calendar in the collections for Habits, Tasks, and Smart 1:1s.
How Reclaim auto-schedules meeting events
Your smart meeting events created by Reclaim, like Smart 1:1s and Scheduling Link events are auto-scheduled with additional controls to defend your time for collaboration.
Scheduling Link events
Scheduling Links allow you to get the right meetings booked sooner with advanced prioritization controls. These events are intelligently protected by Reclaim on the calendar. When someone books a meeting with you using a Scheduling Link, that event is blocked out on your calendar and automatically marked as 'Busy' by Reclaim.
Depending on the priority you set for your individual Scheduling Links, Reclaim will offer up availability by showing lower-priority Habits, Tasks, Smart 1:1s, and non-Reclaim events as open time slots to others.
If a higher-priority meeting is booked over a scheduled Habit, Task, or Smart 1:1 – Reclaim will automatically reschedule the overbooked event to the next best time around your preferences.
Check out the Scheduling Links help doc collection to learn more.
Smart 1:1 events
Reclaim auto-schedules your Smart 1:1 events at the best time across your and your invitees' calendar, on a recurring frequency around your scheduling preferences.
If you cannot make the meeting at the time it was scheduled, either the organizer and invitee of the Smart 1:1 can 'Reschedule' or 'Skip' the event instance and Reclaim will automatically find the next best time across both calendars for the meeting.
Learn more about how to skip or reschedule a Smart 1:1 in this help doc.
How Reclaim schedules around non-Reclaim events
A powerful capability of Reclaim Priorities is you can also adjust the priority level of the non-Reclaim created events on your calendar (like internal team meetings or recurring standups that were created in Google Calendar).
Turning down the the priority of non-Reclaim calendar events will allow those times to show as available for your higher-priority Scheduling Links – allowing you the power to offer up your maximum availability for your most important meetings.
❗By default, all non-Reclaim events on your calendar will always be set to Critical (P1) priority, so they will never be overbooked by any Reclaim events – unless you manually turn down the priority level of a non-Reclaim event.
If you leave your non-Reclaim events on your calendar in the default Critical priority level, Reclaim will auto-schedule your smart events around those events.
Alternatively, you can try turning down the priority of a few non-Reclaim calendar events you'd be okay with overbooking with more important meeting events to watch your availability open up when sharing higher-priority Scheduling Links.
❗Your non-Reclaim events manually set to a lower priority level can only ever be overbooked by higher-priority Scheduling Links which will show that time as available – non-Reclaim events will never be overscheduled by Habits, Tasks, or Smart 1:1s, regardless of priority levels.
Learn more about how Priorities work for non-Reclaim created events in this help doc.
How Reclaim automatically reschedules events
There's only so much time in the week. That's why Reclaim is always assessing your calendar as it books up and intelligently evaluates what events need to be prioritized.
Scheduling conflicts
When important items are at risk, or scheduling conflicts come up – Reclaim responds in real time (in about 15 seconds or less) to automatically move around your scheduled events on the calendar to ensure you stay aligned to your priorities.
Smart Free/Busy controls
Reclaim keeps your calendar flexible by initially scheduling your smart events as 'Free' and then automatically flipping them to 'Busy' and locking the event to secure it, as your time books up or the start time draws near.
Unless an event is locked (either automatically by Reclaim, or with auto-lock settings which you can set for Smart 1:1s and/or Habits and Tasks) the event will automatically reschedule within a few seconds of being overbooked.
For example, if you have a Habit to "Walk the Dog" at 3pm, and you block time over that event for a meeting – the Habit event will automatically reschedule to the next best time around your preferences and if there is time available that day or a lower-priority Habit, Task, or Smart 1:1 the Habit can overbook.
Note: Reclaim won't consider an event you're invited to as an 'overbooking' unless you RSVP "Yes" or "Maybe" to it. For example, if a Habit is interrupted by an invite to a meeting at the same time, the Habit won't move until you RSVP Yes or Maybe to the event.
You can learn more about how Reclaim uses Free/Busy controls to keep your schedule flexible in this help doc.