How to ask for someone's availability, with templates

Five things, and most requests leave out at least two. What the meeting is for, in one line. How long it runs. Two or three specific options with dates and times. The time zone, if there is any chance the other person is in a different one. And when you need an answer, so the request has somewhere to land.

Everything else is optional. You do not need to explain why you are asking, apologise for taking their time, or open with a paragraph about the project. A short message gets a faster reply, because it can be answered from a phone between two other things.

'When are you free?' and 'Whenever suits you' feel polite, but they hand the work to the other person. They now have to open their calendar, find gaps, guess which ones you can do, and write them out, after which you will probably reply that two of them do not work for you. That is how a fifteen-minute call takes four days to book.

Three options is the number that works. One is a take-it-or-leave-it, more than four starts to read like a form. Spread them across different days and different parts of the day, so a single recurring conflict does not rule out all of them. Add 'or suggest another time' at the end, which keeps it polite without reopening the whole question.

The one exception is someone much more senior or a client who has said they are hard to pin down. Even then, offer options, but make it clear you will fit around them.

Internally you can be brief to the point of bluntness. A chat message is usually better than an email, and if you can both see each other's calendars, look first and propose a slot that is already free.

The same structure, with more said about why and less asked of them. Senior people get a lot of meeting requests, and the ones that get accepted quickly are the ones that make clear what will be decided and how little time it needs. If they have an assistant who runs their diary, ask the assistant directly and copy your manager.

Be slightly more formal and much more explicit. You cannot see their calendar, you may not know their working hours, and you may not be in the same time zone, so state the zone every time and, if you know theirs, convert the times for them. A client should never have to do arithmetic to reply to you.

Give a deadline here too, but frame it as your planning rather than their obligation: 'so I can hold the time' rather than 'please reply by'.

Listing times in an email works for one other person. With three or more it breaks down: each reply only shows that person's answer, the thread fills with 'Tuesday works for me but not the 14:30', and you end up building a grid in your head. With people in different time zones it is worse, because each of them is reading your times and converting them.

This is where a poll works better. Put the options in a Decider poll, send one link, and everyone marks Yes, Maybe or No against each time without signing up, each seeing the times in their own zone. You can see which times suit most people instead of piecing it together from replies.

Wait two working days for a colleague and three to four for someone external before you chase. When you do, do not just bump the thread. Restate the options, drop any that have passed, and make it easier to answer than the first message was.