Travel & planning · 4 min read
Finding a fair time for a global meeting
A step-by-step approach to overlapping work hours, daylight saving and fair scheduling.
A meeting can fit on one calendar and still fall during another person’s dinner or sleep. Finding overlap is a time-zone problem; making the choice fair is a people problem. Both deserve attention.
Map local hours first
List each person’s city and preferred working window, including local day and any protected time. Convert the same candidate instant into all of those named time zones. If there is overlap, choose a time inside it, not just one that falls before midnight for everyone.
For example, a London–New York call is easy to place during the morning in New York and afternoon in London. Add a colleague in Tokyo and a comfortable three-way overlap may disappear. That is a scheduling constraint, not a failure of the calculator.
When there is no perfect slot
Rotate inconvenient meeting times rather than repeatedly asking the same region to stay late. Share an agenda and materials in advance, record decisions in writing and allow asynchronous input. A shorter call may be more respectful than insisting on an hour at an awkward time.
If attendance is essential, explicitly ask which trade-offs are acceptable. ‘Best time’ is not purely mathematical: school pickups, religious observance and accessibility needs can matter more than a generic nine-to-five window.
Protect the invitation from clock changes
Plan with a date as well as a time. In weeks when regions switch daylight saving on different days, a usual call can shift for one side. Send a calendar invitation with named zones or a fixed instant and verify attendees’ displayed local dates.
For recurring meetings, decide whose local clock anchors the event. If it remains at 10:00 in London all year, the time experienced in New York can change temporarily. Re-check each transition season.
Sources & further reading
These sources provide the underlying standards or research. This guide is educational and is not medical advice.