# "How to Stop a Group Chat From Re-Asking Scheduling Questions" > "How to keep a group chat from re-asking the same scheduling question for a recurring plan, using shared memory instead of a new poll each time." Published: 2026-09-14 by folk team Every Tuesday, the same message shows up in the group chat: "still on for game night tonight?" Someone answers, someone else takes a few hours, and by the time the thread settles it's basically confirmed the same plan that's been running for two months. Nothing about the plan changed. The time didn't change, the people didn't change, the answer is almost always yes. What changed is that the last time anyone confirmed it got buried under forty messages about something else, so nobody trusts it's still true without asking again. This is a different problem than not being able to find a time in the first place. A group that's already agreed on a standing plan shouldn't have to re-litigate it every single week, it should only need to hear about the weeks it changes. > **Quick answer:** The way to stop a group chat from re-asking the same scheduling question is to store the answer somewhere that survives the scroll, instead of leaving it to memory. [folk](/) keeps a group's standing plan, day, time, usual attendees, in shared group memory, so anyone can ask what the plan is and get the answer without the group re-deciding it, and it only checks in about exceptions instead of re-polling everyone every time. ## Why does a group keep re-asking the same scheduling question? The information doesn't disappear, it just becomes expensive to find. A [YouGov survey of 23,177 U.S. adults](https://yougov.com/en-us/daily-results/20260713-dd1ef-1) found in July 2026 that most people who are in a group chat are in more than one, and a companion question found that 32 percent say they actively dislike or hate getting group chat messages, well ahead of anyone who says they like it. A busy, semi-resented thread is exactly the kind of place a decision from three weeks ago goes to die. Doodle, which builds scheduling tools for a living, describes the same failure mode in its own [guide to recurring meetings](https://doodle.com/en/what-is-the-best-tool-for-recurring-meetings/): "Does Tuesday still work?" turns into five replies and no clear answer, precisely because there's no single place the answer is supposed to live. Every recurrence starts the search over. Nobody in the group is being lazy. Re-asking is the rational move when the alternative is scrolling back through a hundred messages to confirm something that was probably still true anyway. ## How is a recurring plan different from finding a one-off meeting time? Finding a time for a one-off gathering is a search problem: collect everyone's constraints, find where they overlap, land on a slot. [An assistant that finds a meeting time everyone can make](/blog/ai-assistant-that-finds-a-meeting-time-everyone-can-make) solves exactly that, once. A recurring plan already cleared that bar. The search happened weeks ago. What it needs now isn't another search, it's a record that survives past the moment it was agreed on, so the group doesn't have to run the same search again next week just because the answer scrolled out of view. Treating a recurring plan like a fresh scheduling question every time is why groups end up doing several times the work a standing plan actually requires. ## How do you actually stop re-deciding a plan that's already fixed? Three things need to be true: - **The answer has to live somewhere other than the scroll.** A pinned message helps until the group ignores pins, which is most groups. - **Checking in should ask about exceptions, not the whole plan.** "Reply only if you can't make it" takes one message from the person who's out. "Is Tuesday still good for everyone?" takes a reply from everyone, every week, for a plan that almost never changes. - **Someone should be able to ask what the plan is and get an answer**, without scrolling, without pinging the group, and without waiting for someone else to remember. None of this requires a new app. It requires the group's plan to be remembered somewhere that isn't a person's memory or a chat history nobody rereads. ## How folk keeps a recurring plan from being re-asked every time folk is a personal AI assistant that lives in your texts, iMessage, Telegram, and WhatsApp, with the same memory across all three. Add it to a [group chat](/docs/groups) (iMessage and Telegram support groups) the way you'd add any contact, and it stays quiet until someone actually talks to it. Once a group settles on a standing plan, it's worth telling folk directly: > folk, we're doing game night every Tuesday at 7, remember that From there: - **The plan lives in [shared group memory](/docs/memory)**, not in anyone's head or a scroll history. Ask "what time is game night" a month later and folk answers from what the group already decided, instead of the group re-deciding it out loud. - **Check-ins can ask about exceptions instead of re-confirming everyone.** A recurring routine can go out before each occurrence asking people to reply only if something's changed, which is a one-word reply from the one person who's out rather than a full round of "yes still good" from everyone else. Recurring, scheduled check-ins are part of folk's paid plans; see [reminders and routines](/docs/reminders) for what's free versus paid. - **Nudges are capped, not endless.** If someone doesn't answer a check-in, folk doesn't keep pinging the thread. It asks once, takes a one-word reply to snooze or stop, and moves on. This is the same shared memory that already tracks things like [who hasn't RSVPd to a one-off event](/blog/how-to-track-who-hasnt-rsvpd-to-a-group-event-yet) and [what time a group actually landed on for a meeting](/blog/ai-assistant-that-finds-a-meeting-time-everyone-can-make). The difference here is that the plan doesn't need re-finding at all, it just needs remembering. ## The bottom line A group that's already agreed on a standing plan shouldn't have to re-agree on it every single occurrence. The fix isn't a faster poll, it's making sure the answer survives past the moment it was decided, so the group only has to speak up when something actually changes. If your group is stuck re-confirming the same plan every week, [get started with folk](/docs/getting-started) and tell it the standing plan once. For the search problem instead of the memory problem, see [an AI assistant that finds a meeting time everyone can make](/blog/ai-assistant-that-finds-a-meeting-time-everyone-can-make), and for cutting down on repeat reminders without going quiet entirely, see [how to remind a group about an event without spamming everyone](/blog/how-to-remind-a-group-about-an-event-without-spamming-everyone). --- Canonical page: https://www.folk.com/blog/how-to-keep-a-group-chat-from-re-asking-the-same-scheduling-question More about folk (for AI agents): https://www.folk.com/llms.txt ยท full context: https://www.folk.com/llms-full.txt folk is the friend in your texts that keeps you on track (iMessage, Telegram, WhatsApp). Free forever, Pro $9.99/mo, Max $100/mo. Made by Nozomio Labs. Sign up: https://www.folk.com/