A public booking page is fantastic — until your calendar fills up uncontrollably with back-to-back calls, leaving zero time for deep work. LockMyCal provides a comprehensive suite of protective controls to decide how many meetings you accept, when they take place, and which requests you approve. Let us examine them step by step.

1. Daily Meeting Duration Limits

Your primary shield against meeting burnout. Under Availability, configure the maximum meeting hours allowed for each day of the week.

Example Strategy:

  • Monday max 2 hours (dedicated to administrative tasks, planning, and focused work).
  • Tuesday to Thursday max 5 hours (client consultations).
  • Friday morning consultations only (capped at 3 hours).

As soon as a new booking would cause total daily meeting time to exceed your threshold, longer slots are automatically removed from your public schedule.

2. Time Off & Holidays

Add holidays, vacations, or sick leave as Time Off with start and end dates. The blocked days immediately disappear from your available booking slots without adding clutter to your underlying calendar. If time off conflicts with existing appointments, the system alerts you so you can reschedule.

For one-off changes, use Date-Specific Overrides — block individual days entirely, shorten available hours, or open up slots on dates that are normally closed.

3. Buffers, Notice Periods, and Booking Horizon

Three essential rules you should configure from day one:

  • Buffer Time Between Meetings (0–120 minutes) — breathing room to take notes, prepare for the next call, or take a break. Buffers are enforced before and after all events, including external calendar events.
  • Minimum Notice Period — avoid stressful last-minute bookings by requiring, for instance, at least 3 or 24 hours advance notice.
  • Booking Horizon — restrict how far into the future clients can schedule, such as up to 60 or 90 days.

4. Booking Frequency Caps

Need to ensure you take no more than three in-depth strategy audits in a single week? Set a booking limit per day, week, or month on specific meeting types, or configure global caps across your entire profile.

5. Slot Start Intervals

Specify start time cadence — for example, offering slots every 30 minutes regardless of meeting length. This prevents fragmented gaps throughout your workday.

6. Manual Booking Approvals

For high-stake consultations or qualifying leads, enable Manual Approval Required. When a client books, a pending request appears under Meetings → Requests:

  • Approve — the appointment is confirmed, written to your calendar, and invitation details sent to the client.
  • Decline — optionally provide a polite explanation; the slot is released immediately.

You can also specify a decision timeout — if you do not review a request before the window closes, it expires gracefully.

Setting Recommended Value
Buffer Between Meetings 15 minutes
Minimum Notice 24 hours
Booking Horizon 60 days
Daily Meeting Hour Cap Mon 2h, Tue–Thu 5h, Fri 3h
15-min Discovery Call Instant confirmation, max 3/day
90-min Deep Dive Manual approval, max 4/week

The result: clients book effortlessly, while you protect your focus, energy, and work-life balance.

Explore detailed documentation: Availability Schedules, Meeting Types, and Approval Workflows.