How to Schedule a Meeting Across Time Zones

Convert the time

1. Open Time Zone Converter.
2. Enter the date and time you have in mind, and the time zone it is in.
3. Add the cities of everyone invited and check it is a reasonable hour for each.

Watch out for daylight saving time

Countries change their clocks on different dates, and many never do. The United States moves its clocks in March and November, Europe on the last Sundays of March and October, and much of Asia, Africa and South America not at all. For a few weeks each year, the gap between New York and London is 4 hours instead of 5. Always convert for the actual date of the meeting, not today.

Write the time clearly

• Use a city, not an abbreviation: "15:00 London time" instead of "3 pm GMT", which is wrong half the year.
• Give the time in two or three zones in the invite.
• Use 24-hour time or write am/pm, and include the day of the week, which catches date mix-ups across midnight.

Let the calendar do it

Calendar invites from Google Calendar, Outlook and Apple Calendar store the meeting as an exact moment and show it in each guest's own time zone, as long as the time zone was set correctly when the invite was made.