In the world of CSS, there are two different types of spacing between elements:
- Margin is the space outside of an element
- Padding is the spacing inside of an element
I’ve come to believe that scheduled meetings have MARGIN and PADDING too. Meeting Margin is the space between two meetings. This needs to be explicit. The screenshot below shows two meetings with no margins. They’re bumping up against each other.
Meeting Padding is the space inside a meeting required to make space between other meetings/activities before and after. For example, if I show up immediately after a previous meeting, I’ll still need a minute to find my notes, or run to the bathroom.
I try to give meetings Margin so they don’t end up with too much Padding. I try not to put two meetings immediately adjacent on the calendar. I don’t always success.
I wish calendar tools like Google Calendar would make this basic human requirement a bit more obviously part of the flow of booking meetings. Let me know that this meeting runs right into the next one, or that the person I’ve invited has zero minutes between their previous meeting and the one I’m scheduling.
That’s super insightful for what should be a basic requirement in calendar design. I’ve been doing something like that instinctively with family logistics, so when someone asks for a drive to school or work or yoga, I know this is three “events”: their actual thing, the buffer to arrive early for the drop, and if I’m picking them up, usually leaving before their shift ends. My personal calendar looks chaotic because of all these strange little events, but once you have two or three of these in a day, the overlaps get complicated fast. Margin/padding is a nice way for me to think of my own planning and be prepared when others generally put little thought in the dependencies of multiple events.