Time-zone scheduling
How to schedule a meeting across time zones
Find the overlap first, propose only inside it, and let calendars do the conversion. Here is the method, the usable windows for the common corridors, and the mistakes that quietly cost people an hour.
Updated August 4, 2026.
The five steps
- 1
List each person's zone, not each person's city
“London” and “Europe/London” behave differently across the year, and “EST” is not a time zone anyone is actually in during summer. Write down the IANA zone (Europe/London, America/New_York, Asia/Kolkata) for every participant. This is the only form that survives daylight saving.
- 2
Find the overlap window before proposing anything
Take each person's acceptable working hours in their own zone, convert them all to a single reference zone, and look for the intersection. With Berlin, New York and Singapore on the call, that intersection is roughly 90 minutes wide — so there is no point proposing five times spread across the day.
- 3
Propose times inside the window, in each person's local time
Send a shortlist that already sits inside the overlap, and make sure every recipient sees it rendered in their own zone. Never make a participant do the arithmetic: that is where the hour-early joins come from.
- 4
Collect a vote, not a confirmation
“Works for me” hides a lot. Asking for Yes / Maybe / No on each option surfaces the difference between a slot someone can technically make and one they would rather not, which matters a great deal when one side is dialling in at 21:00.
- 5
Lock the time as an absolute instant, then let calendars localize it
Confirm once, and distribute a calendar invite rather than a written time. A calendar entry carries a single absolute instant and each attendee's client renders it correctly. A time written in prose gets misread by exactly the person you least wanted to lose.
Usable overlap windows for common corridors
Approximate, assuming roughly 09:00–18:00 working hours on both sides. Exact times shift by an hour around daylight-saving changeovers, which is precisely why you should send a calendar invite rather than a written time.
| Corridor | Usable window | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| US East Coast ↔ Western Europe | ≈ 13:00–17:00 CET / 07:00–11:00 ET | The friendliest pairing on this list. Both sides stay inside normal working hours, so no rotation is needed. |
| US West Coast ↔ Western Europe | ≈ 17:00–19:00 CET / 08:00–10:00 PT | Roughly two usable hours. Europe takes the late slot; consider ending the day there rather than starting early in California. |
| Western Europe ↔ India | ≈ 12:00–17:30 IST / 08:30–14:00 CET | Wide and comfortable. India's half-hour offset is the main thing people get wrong when writing times by hand. |
| Western Europe ↔ Singapore / Hong Kong | ≈ 15:00–18:00 SGT / 09:00–12:00 CET | Asia takes the late-afternoon end. Workable year-round, but it shifts an hour when Europe changes clocks and Asia does not. |
| US East Coast ↔ India | ≈ 18:30–20:30 IST / 09:00–11:00 ET | Someone is always outside normal hours. Rotate it, and keep these meetings short. |
| US West Coast ↔ Singapore / Australia East | Effectively none in working hours | There is no fair slot. Either accept an early morning or a late evening on one side and rotate it, or stop meeting synchronously and move the work to writing. |
Five mistakes that cause missed calls
Writing “EST” when you mean “New York time”
New York is on EST for about four months a year and EDT for the rest. Half the year, a literal reading of “3pm EST” is an hour off. Say “New York time” or send a calendar invite.
Assuming clocks change everywhere on the same date
Europe and North America change on different weekends, and much of Asia, Africa and South America does not change at all. For two to three weeks each spring and autumn, a recurring meeting silently moves by an hour for some attendees.
Forgetting the half-hour and 45-minute offsets
India is UTC+5:30, parts of Australia are UTC+9:30, and Nepal is UTC+5:45. Mental arithmetic that only handles whole hours gets these wrong every time.
Always giving the same team the bad slot
If the overlap only works when one region dials in outside working hours, rotating it is the difference between a sustainable arrangement and quiet resentment. Write the rotation down; it will not happen by itself.
Proposing times outside the overlap at all
Every option that cannot work for someone is wasted attention, and it makes the poll look careless. Compute the window first, then propose only inside it.
How Decider handles the conversion
Every proposed time is stored as an absolute instant and rendered in each visitor's own zone, taken from their device. A colleague in Singapore and one in Berlin open the same link and each sees their own local time, so nobody converts anything by hand. When you lock in the winner, everyone can add it to Google, Apple or Outlook Calendar in one tap — which is what makes the time survive the next daylight-saving change.
Time-zone scheduling FAQ
What is the best time to schedule a meeting across time zones?
Whatever sits inside the overlap of everyone's working hours. For US East Coast and Western Europe that is roughly 13:00–17:00 CET; for Europe and India, roughly 12:00–17:30 IST. When there is no overlap at all — US West Coast and Singapore, for instance — pick a slot that is unfair to one side and rotate who takes it.
How do I avoid daylight saving mistakes in recurring meetings?
Send a real calendar invite rather than a written time, and anchor the series to a named time zone rather than a UTC offset. Europe and North America switch on different weekends, so a series pinned to “UTC+1” drifts by an hour for part of the year while one anchored to Europe/Berlin does not.
Should I ask people to convert times themselves?
No. That is where missed calls come from. Use a tool that renders every proposed time in each participant's own zone automatically, so nobody is doing arithmetic on a phone in a hurry.
How many time options should I propose for an international meeting?
Three to five, all inside the overlap window. Proposing more does not help — the constraint is the overlap, not the number of options — and every option that cannot work for someone dilutes the responses you get.
What if there is no overlap in working hours at all?
Accept it explicitly rather than hunting for a slot that does not exist. Either rotate an unsociable time between regions so the cost is shared, shorten the meeting so the cost is small, or move the work to asynchronous writing and keep synchronous time for the parts that genuinely need it.
Let everyone see the times in their own zone
Propose a few times inside the overlap, share one link, and let the group vote. Free, and nobody you invite has to sign up.
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