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This optional rule is intended to help bridge some of the differences between prepared, flexible and spontaneous casting. It boosts everyone in a small but meaningful way.
Reserve Spell Pseudo-slot (Campaign System Archetype)
Prepared Casters:
During your daily preparations for each rank of spells you can cast, you can select a spell you have access to of that rank to designated as that ranks' reserve spell. It doesn't count as a full slot. But you can at any time use up the Reserve designation, and another spell's slot of the same rank, to cast the reserve spell.
Spontaneous Casters:
Pick a spell which you have access to and are on your Spells Known, but not in your current repertoire. During your exploration or downtime activities for the day, you may cast this spell using a spell slot of one of your highest two ranks of spells. The casting process takes around 10 minutes in total to complete but the effect can, if desired begin shortly after the activity begins.
Flexible Casters:
During your daily preparations, simply pick an extra individual spell which you have access to which you could normally add to your collection, to consider your reserve spell for the day. This reserve spell will be added to your collection in every rank which you could cast it.
Likely, if you qualify for more than one of the above, you pick one magic pool to apply the adjustment to.
None of these reserve designations grant you a new casting of the spell. It only grants you the ability to choose to cast the reserve spell in place of some other spell you would normally cast out of a designated slot.
I feel this pseudo-slot would mostly benefit prepared casters more than the others, which is fine in my opinion: prepared casters are quite inflexible within the day, and treating one spell like it's spontaneous could help remedy that. Spending 10 minutes casting a spell, by contrast, I think would prevent most spells from being usable using this pseudo-slot mechanic on spontaneous casters.
I also feel that these three versions could be combined: for instance, you could choose a reserve spell each time you make your daily preparations from the list of common spells and other spells available to you. Regardless of your mode of spellcasting, you could always spend any spell slot of the appropriate rank to cast the reserve spell, automatically heightening the spell to the slot's rank. This would give prepared casters a taste of spontaneous spellcasting, spontaneous casters a taste of prepared casting, and flexible spellcasters essentially just an additional spell in their collection.