Your Shared Calendar Shouldn't Stop at Close Friends
Who gets to see your calendar?
Most shared calendar apps assume a short answer. Your partner. Maybe your two closest friends. Everyone else gets nothing.
I built SoKal around a longer answer: anyone you'd grab coffee with. The catch is that they don't all see the same thing.
Real life already works this way
Think about how you share your week right now. Your best friend knows about the dentist on Tuesday and that you're flying home for Thanksgiving.
A friend from your run club knows about the Saturday long run and that you'll be in Austin next month. The coworker you get lunch with once a quarter knows if you're free Thursday. That's about it.
Nobody set that up. You just share at the level the relationship can hold. Your calendar should do the same.
Three groups on SoKal
Close friends
They see almost everything you put on SoKal. The one exception is anything synced from Google, Apple or Outlook. Those show up as busy unless you mark one as a trip, an outing or a workout. Your work calendar stays yours, even with your inner circle.
Friends
This is where most people land. They see the plans worth knowing about: dinners, nights out, trips. Workouts too, if you switch them on. Enough to text you "wait, you're in Chicago that weekend? Me too."
Acquaintances
They see if you're busy. No titles, no places. The coworker asking if you're around Thursday doesn't need to know why you aren't.
If they don't fit a group, don't add them
Almost everyone in your life lands in one of those three. Your sister. Your college roommate. The neighbor you trade dog-sitting with. The guy from pickup who's always trying to get a run going.
Someone who doesn't fit any of them doesn't belong on your calendar. That's the whole filter.
So a close-friends-only limit is solving the wrong problem. Since anyone can go in the right group, anyone can be added. The groups do the protecting, so your friend list doesn't have to.
And more people on it means more overlap. Someone's in town. Someone's free the same night. Those plans never happen when your shared calendar has three people on it.
Add your people
SoKal is a free shared calendar for friends on iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows and the web. Add the people you'd grab coffee with, drop each one in a group, and see who's around.
