How to Plan Meetings Across Time Zones

Scheduling a meeting across continents fails most often because someone assumes “3 PM” means their local clock. Clear timezone labels and one shared conversion step prevent no-shows and awkward early-morning dial-ins.

Start by naming every proposed slot with an explicit zone—for example “15:00 São Paulo (BRT)”—or use UTC as a neutral reference, then convert for each attendee. Watch daylight saving transitions: the same city can shift by an hour between seasons, and overlapping “spring forward” weeks confuse calendars that cache old offsets.

Pick overlapping workday windows when you can. For three regions, sketch each person’s core hours and look for a one-hour intersection; if none exists, rotate who takes the early or late slot across recurring meetings so the burden is shared. Send calendar invites that store the correct zone, not just a wall-clock time in text.

Before the call, re-check “now” in each zone—especially for launches, webinars, and interviews where a one-hour miss is costly. Ambiguous local times around DST changes deserve a second look with another converter or a teammate in that region.

Need a quick check before you send the invite? Use EverydayKit’s free Timezone Converter—it runs in your browser with common IANA zones and DST-aware offsets.