How to fill your calendar by starting with the hours that sit empty
To fill your calendar you first need to know which hours sit empty and which appointments fall through. In Proyecta you see it in the Reports of your Schedule, with your occupancy, your busiest hours, and who didn't show.
Gabriela runs a brow and lash studio in Córdoba, Veracruz, with two technicians, Montse and Selene. By late October she already had the message written for her clients: 2x1 lash lifts on Saturdays. The month had felt slow, and to fill her calendar she picked the day people asked for most.
Before sending it, she opened her calendar reports. Saturday at 11:00 AM had been her busiest hour of the month. The empty hours were somewhere else: Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 1 to 4 in the afternoon. Her promotion was about to hand out a discount on the exact hours that already sold themselves.
Filling your calendar starts with something less exciting than a promotion: knowing which hours sit empty, how many appointments fall through, and for which service. If your appointments already live on your page, that math is already done.
Why does your calendar feel slow when Saturday is nonstop?
Because you remember the full hours, not the empty ones. A Saturday with five clients back to back sticks in your mind; a Tuesday at 1:30 with nobody in the chair leaves no memory at all.
That’s why the count you carry in your head almost always skews toward the busy days. And a promotion decided on that count usually lands exactly where it’s least needed.
What are your calendar reports?
Calendar reports are the real tally of what actually happened with your appointments over a period: how many there were, how many showed up, how many were cancelled, and at what times. You don’t have to enter anything; they’re pulled straight from the appointments you already have.
In Proyecta they’re under Schedule, in Reports. Only whoever administers the page can see them, because they carry money and client data; your team keeps using the calendar exactly as before. They open on This month, which includes what’s already booked for the days still to come. You can also view This week, Last month, Last 90 days, or a Custom period of up to a year.
At the top are the period’s numbers: Appointments, Attendance, No-shows, Cancellations, New clients, and Occupancy, plus Collected if you charge from your page or your till. Below that come the appointments chart and the tables broken down by staff member and by service.
How do you know how full your calendar is?
Through Occupancy: the booked hours divided by the hours your schedule offers. If you’re open 10 to 7, Monday through Saturday, and half that time had an appointment, your occupancy is 50%. This number shows up once your calendars have their weekly schedule set.
Gabriela’s October came in at 59%. What would actually move the needle for the month was in the By staff member or calendar table: she was at 79%, Montse at 66%, and Selene at 31%. Selene had started in September and almost no one knew her yet, so clients kept asking for Gabriela by name.
Occupancy is measured against your current schedule, so if you changed your hours partway through the month, the whole month is measured against the new ones.
What hour does your calendar empty out?
The Busiest hours grid tells you. Each little square is one hour of the week, and the darker it is, the more appointments started there. At the top you get your peak hour spelled out: “Your busiest hour: Saturday, 11:00 AM · 12 appointments.”
The light squares are your slow hours. In Gabriela’s grid, Saturday morning looked almost black, while Tuesday and Wednesday after lunch were nearly white.
Watch out for long services. Each appointment counts in the hour it starts, so a set of lash extensions from 12:00 to 2:00 darkens the noon square and leaves the 1:00 square light, even though that hour was in fact busy. Before writing off an hour as empty, check which services start right before it.
How many of your appointments fall through, and for which service?
Attendance counts, out of the appointments that have already happened and been marked, how many showed up. Gabriela’s read “171 of 186 showed up”, or 92%, with 15 no-shows. Cancellations are counted separately and don’t count against your appointments, because that slot opened up in time for someone else to take it.
The By service table showed her exactly where the gap was: 9 of the 15 no-shows were lash extensions, a two-hour service at $950. Losing a half-hour brow design didn’t hurt the way a whole morning of extensions with no client did. She decided to require a deposit for that service only.
For this number to mean anything, every appointment has to be marked Attended or No-show. One nobody marks stays as “Upcoming” in the chart even after the day has passed, and it counts neither for nor against you. If you see chunks of “Upcoming” on past days, those are appointments you forgot to mark.
Are you short on new clients, or short on the ones who already came?
Under New clients you’ll see how many were returning, for example “8 returning · 20 in total.” A client counts as new if they booked with you for the first time in that period. If almost all of them are returning clients, you’re short on new people; if almost all of them are new, people come once and don’t come back. Those are two different problems.
Where appointments came from tells you how each one arrived: Online, Booked by you, Paid online, Pays at the business, Package, or Membership. If almost everything says “Booked by you,” your page already takes online bookings but your clients are still booking through WhatsApp, with you as the receptionist.
If it shows “Reports arrive with your site’s next update,” your page doesn’t have this feature yet; your appointments keep working the same as always. And with Download CSV you get one row per appointment to open in Excel or send to your accountant.
What did Gabriela do with her numbers?
Three changes, all the same day. She moved the 2x1 lash lift to Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 1 to 4, with Selene only, to fill those hours and, at the same time, introduce her to clients who didn’t know her yet. She started requiring a deposit for extensions. And she asked Montse to mark every appointment before leaving, since she had eleven unmarked appointments from October.
On December 1st she’ll open Last month again to check two numbers: Selene’s occupancy and the extension no-shows.
How do I set this up for my business?
Describe your business to Proyecta in your own words. Something like: “a page for my brow and lash studio in Córdoba, with brow design, lash lift, and extensions with their price and duration, online booking with each technician, and a WhatsApp button.”
If you want to fill your calendar, before sending your next promotion open Last month, find the lightest square on a weekday, and put your offer on that date and time instead of the day you’re busiest. Get started at proyecta.dev.