Start with general hours
General availability is your default open hours, applied to every service unless something more specific overrides it. For most solo operators, this is the only availability you'll ever set. Open it, mark your days and hours, set buffer time between appointments, save.
Block lunch as an explicit closed window instead of just leaving it off the schedule and hoping nobody books it. Same goes for any standing block — Friday paperwork, Wednesday school pickup, the gym.
Use category availability when a group of services runs different hours
Categories are useful when several services share the same scheduling quirk. A fitness coach who does in-person sessions weekday mornings and virtual sessions weekday evenings is the textbook case — group all in-person services into one category with morning hours, all virtual into another with evening hours, and you're done.
If only one service has a quirk, skip categories and go straight to service-specific availability. Categories are worth it once three or more services share the same pattern.
Service-specific availability for the one weird service
This is the scalpel. Use it when one service breaks the normal rules — a consultation you only do Monday mornings, a workshop that runs the first Saturday of the month, a multi-hour service that needs to start at 9 or 1 with nothing in between.
Set it on the service itself. The general pattern still controls everything else.
How conflicts resolve
When a customer tries to book, Timebase checks the most specific availability it can find: service-specific first, then category, then general. Whichever applies is the one that wins. You don't need to think about it as long as you only set the layers you actually need.