Techniques to defer an incoming communication and schedule a follow up communication and techniques to provide reminders to communicate with a selected contact in order to maintain a level of connectivity with the contact are disclosed. A communication recipient can defer an incoming communication and schedule a return communication time. The return communication may be manually deferred by a user and/or automatically deferred based at least in part on availability of a user on an appointment calendar. Also, the communication recipient can receive reminders of the scheduled return communication or reminders to communicate with a selected contact based on a level of connectivity.