Asking a group "when are you free?" produces answers that cannot be combined, because each person answers in a different shape and none of them know what the others said. The reliable alternative is to propose three to six specific dates and ask each person to mark yes, maybe or no. Who can when? does this with one shared link, free and with no account for anyone.
Why it backfires
It asks each person to audit their own calendar, guess how far ahead you mean, guess how much detail you want, and write it out. Most people answer vaguely to avoid the work, and vague answers are the ones that cannot be stacked against each other.
Then it makes you the reconciler. Ten replies in ten formats, and the merging happens in your head, where it is slow and where mistakes are invisible until somebody does not turn up.
Ask this instead
- "Which of these can you make?" with three to six dates listed.
- Include the time, if the time is what decides it.
- Say when you need to know by. A deadline roughly doubles the answers.
- Let people say maybe, so the awkward-but-possible date is not lost as a no.
- Say what happens next: you will pick and tell everyone.
When the open question is right
With one other person, it is fine - two calendars reconcile easily in a conversation. It starts failing at about four people and is hopeless by eight, which is exactly the size where somebody usually decides to organise something.
Common questions
- What if I genuinely do not know which dates to propose?
- Propose a rough spread anyway and switch on participant-added dates. People are much better at reacting to options than generating them.
- How many options should I give?
- Three to six. Past six or seven, people skim rather than answer carefully.
- Does everyone need an account to answer?
- No. They open the link and tap three buttons.
Ready when you are
The basics
What a date poll is, and how to run one that people actually answer.
Related
- Availability poll Collect availability from a whole group without collecting it one message at a time. Propose the dates, everyone marks them, and the answers add themselves up.
- Find a date everyone can make Stop guessing which evening works. Propose a handful of dates, share one link, and let everyone mark when they can. Free, no account, answers in minutes.
- Game night scheduling Board games, D&D or cards: the number decides what you can actually play. Propose the evenings, count the yeses, and pick knowing who is in.
Read next
- How to get people to actually answer your date poll Most people who do not answer a scheduling poll are not refusing - they hit friction. Here is where the drop-off happens and what removes it.
Or see everything we have written in one list.