Where Did the Idea Come From? – When Monthly Scheduling Is Not a Calendar but Relief

There are problems that remain invisible for a long time. Not because they are small, but because everyone has gotten used to them.

Organization is typically one of these. As long as it “somehow works,” nobody questions it. There’s Excel. There’s email. There’s a bit of patience. Sometimes some tension. Sometimes an uncomfortable round or two. But overall: it works.

Until it doesn’t.

The idea of a monthly scheduler was not born in a product meeting. Not from a feature list. It came from a series of “somehow it works” situations—ones where the problem wasn’t the lack of a system, but that the system was answering the wrong questions.

When the problem isn’t the time slot

Most booking systems start from a basic assumption: there is a free time slot, someone books it, done. First come, first served (FCFS). Whoever is faster wins. Everyone else adapts.

This works in many situations. But not in all of them.

There are services where the time slot is not an immediate decision. Where the client is not asking, “Is it still available?” but rather, “How much of this do I get?” Where it’s not about a single occasion, but an entire month. Where the question is not whether I get a slot at all, but which one I get. Because everyone fits—there are enough slots.

This is where the mindset of monthly scheduling comes in. Not as a feature, but as an approach.

Anna’s story – and what lies beneath

Anna runs one-on-one agility training sessions. She is a well-known, internationally recognized competitor and trainer, and many people come to her. She has a field. And she has herself—her knowledge and experience. That is the entire resource.

It’s not a group class. Not a course. One handler, one dog, one hour. Full attention. That’s exactly why it’s valuable—and exactly why it’s finite.

Anna doesn’t open time slots weekly, but monthly, in advance. She shares the next month’s slots and asks interested people to mark which times would work for them—and also how many sessions they would like in total.

An important detail: they don’t specify “Tuesday at 5.” They only say, “From this set, I’d like, say, three.”

So far, everything sounds fine. The hard part comes next.

The Excel sheet that “still works”

What happens when everyone has submitted their preferences?

Anna sits down. Opens Excel. And starts sorting.

• She eliminates conflicts.

• She makes sure everyone gets at least one session.

• If possible, she fulfills the requested number of sessions.

• At the same time, she tries to cluster her days so she doesn’t have to travel unnecessarily.

This is not an algorithm. This is thinking. Responsibility. And a huge number of micro-decisions.

When a draft is ready, she sends it around. There is an unspoken rule: if there are no objections within a day, it’s done. If there are, the affected parts start all over again.

This is not a bad system. It’s just made of humans—and it consumes human time.

The real problem: decision load

This is where it became clear to us that the issue was not that Anna was working in Excel. It was that every decision landed on her shoulders.

Who should get priority? Who “deserves” it more? How long do we wait for a response? Do we need to reshuffle everything because of a single objection?

These are not technical questions. They are mental burdens.

This is where the idea of monthly scheduling gained meaning: what if the system didn’t just record things, but provided a framework for these decisions?

Not a timetable, not FCFS, but monthly allocation

It’s important to be clear: this is not classic timetable planning. It’s not simple appointment mode. And it’s not “first come, first served.”

The essence of monthly scheduling is that:

• everyone submits their intent,

• the system sees all demands at once,

• and from these creates a conflict-free allocation that respects quotas.

The first click doesn’t decide. The overall picture does.

This is a qualitatively different way of working. Less “fast,” but far more fair—and more predictable.

Why isn’t this obvious at first?

Because for a long time, everyone adapts.

Clients get used to “we’ll see.” Admins get used to “I’ll figure it out.” And the system stays silent.

At some point, organization starts consuming more energy than it gives back. That’s when the need appears for a monthly scheduler that doesn’t accelerate, but relieves.

The mindset from which the system was born

On our “Who is this for?” pages, we don’t list features. We describe situations.

Situations like Anna’s. Organizers who are not working in chaos—just carrying too much responsibility.

The monthly scheduler was born from this realization. Not to “optimize,” but to give breathing room.

To let the system say: this is the decision window. Here is the draft. If there are no objections, this becomes final. If there are, we only touch what’s necessary.

Summary: where did the idea come from?

The idea came from where most good systems come from: reality.

Not from “we need a monthly scheduler,” but from people running the same decision loops month after month—completely alone.

The monthly scheduler is not for everyone. But those it is for know exactly why.

And when they don’t have to open Excel for the first time, that’s when they truly understand.