Placeholder meeting
A placeholder meeting is a calendar hold that reserves a time slot before the actual meeting is confirmed. It signals that the time is likely taken, is often labelled "Hold" or "Tentative", and is replaced or deleted once plans are final.
Why placeholder meeting matters
Placeholders are useful when a time is likely but not settled: a client said "probably Thursday afternoon", a family event is pencilled in, or you want to protect focus time for case notes or edits. They stop other people, and other bookings, from taking that time while you wait for an answer.
The risk is that placeholders pile up. A week full of old holds looks busy when it is not, and that costs you bookings. Name each one clearly, for example "HOLD: Sharma family shoot", and set a date by which you will confirm it or delete it.
If your booking page syncs with Google Calendar, a placeholder event blocks the matching slots, which is what you want while waiting on a client. On Book A Sloth, events marked busy on your primary Google Calendar hide those slots from your page. Delete the hold when plans fall through and the slots open again on their own.
Example
A Hyderabad wedding photographer adds "HOLD: Reddy engagement" to Google Calendar for Sunday afternoon while the family decides, so nobody books a portrait session in that window.
Related terms
Book A Sloth turns these into one link: a booking page with upfront payment over UPI, GST invoices and automatic reminders.