Purpose

Why Calendars Matter

Calendars are the backbone of Motion. They provide the fixed structure — meetings, commitments, and availability — that Motion’s AI needs to build a schedule that actually works. Without connected calendars, Motion wouldn’t know when you’re free, when you’re busy, or how to protect time for tasks.

Why this matters for you:

• Accurate planning → Motion respects your events, deadlines, and working hours.

• One source of truth → Your Motion schedule stays in sync with your external calendars (Google, Outlook, iCloud).

• Smarter scheduling → Tasks flow into the open spaces between events, ensuring nothing overlaps or gets missed.

• Work + life balance → By linking multiple calendars, you can manage professional and personal commitments in one place.

Key idea: Calendars make Motion trustworthy — they ground your AI-driven plan in the reality of your actual availability.

Mental Model: Calendar Layers

Motion organizes calendars into three layers, each serving a different purpose. Together, they give Motion the context to plan your time intelligently without overwhelming you with clutter.

• Accounts → The foundation. These are the external calendars you connect (Google, Outlook, iCloud). Your “main” account decides where new tasks and events are saved by default.

• My Calendars → The active layer. Only the calendars saved here affect your availability in Motion. Events marked Busy in these calendars block time so tasks aren’t scheduled over them.

• Frequently Met With → The collaboration layer. Add colleagues’ shared calendars here to quickly check their availability without affecting your own schedule or task placement.

Key idea: These three layers give you control — you decide which calendars shape your schedule and which are just for reference.

Why 'Accounts' Matter:

The Accounts section can hold a variety of calendars, allowing for the option switch main calendars in Motion, if need be. This allows you flexibility when balancing a variety of schedules, ensuring you are always up to date with your scheduling obligations internally in Motion and externally in your main calendar.

Example Scenario:

Emily has two calendars linked to Motion: "[email protected]" (personal) and "[email protected]" (work). She has set "[email protected]" as her main calendar. As a result, all new events will automatically be added to her work calendar by default.

Why 'My Calendars' Matter:

The calendars saved in your My Calendars section are integral as they are the calendars in which an event's free/busy status will directly impact Motion's auto-scheduling.

Example Scenario:

Let’s revisit Emily's calendar configuration. She has her professional calendar, [email protected], set as the main calendar, and her personal calendar, [email protected], in My Calendars.

Emily wants to schedule her family reunion on her personal calendar, even though her work calendar is set as her main calendar. By selecting [email protected] as the host for the family reunion, Emily can keep her work schedule unaffected while managing personal events.

Why Frequently Met With Matters:

The Frequently Met With section provides a streamlined way to manage collaboration. By integrating shared calendars into Motion, you can easily display your colleagues schedule against your own to find time to meet or collaborate with them, without any impact on your own calendar’s scheduling.

This feature improves scheduling efficiency with collaborators and colleagues and helps you avoid potential scheduling conflicts when trying to coordinate with multiple participants.

Example Scenario:

Emily works with a colleague named Jill, who has shared her calendar, [email protected] with Emily. Emily saved Jill’s calendar under her Frequently Met With calendars allowing Emily to seamlessly view Jill's availability.

When Emily plans a meeting, she can toggle on Jill's calendar to displays Jill’s schedule and check for times of availability; ensuring she chooses a time when Jill is free to meet. Additionally, saving Jill’s calendar in the Frequently Met With section will not impact Emily's existing auto-scheduled tasks and events.

Why Integration & Permissions Matter

Motion only works with the calendars you explicitly connect. By integrating with providers like Google, Outlook, or iCloud, Motion keeps your schedule in sync while giving you full control over what it can see and do.

Why this matters:

• Trust → Your events are private unless you grant Motion access. You choose which calendars are visible inside Motion.

• Control → Decide whether Motion can only read your calendar (see availability) or also write to it (add or update events).

• Accuracy → Real-time syncing ensures Motion respects the same commitments you see in your external calendar.

• Flexibility → You can disconnect or switch main accounts at any time without losing data inside Motion.

Key idea: Permissions ensure you stay in control. Motion uses only the calendars you connect and the access you grant — nothing more.