Some embodiments provide a method for automatically generating an appointment for an electronic calendar. The method receives input to create a new appointment for the calendar. The method analyzes several previous appointments stored for the first calendar. Based on the analysis, the method automatically proposes a new appointment that has at least one appointment characteristic shared with at least one past appointment stored for the calendar. In some embodiments, the method receives text input describing a characteristic of the new appointment, and searches through the previous appointments using the text input.