Guides

How to schedule a meeting across time zones

By the Atlas team · 2 June 2026 · 6 min read

The reliable way to schedule across time zones is to stop converting clocks in your head. List each person's working hours in their own zone, find the window where they overlap, pick a time inside it, and confirm it against the actual date. Here is how to do that quickly, and the traps to avoid.

A meeting that is 10am for you might be 2am for someone else. When a team is spread across San Francisco, London and Singapore, there is no single "good time", only a narrow band of hours when everyone is awake and at their desk. The goal is to find that band on purpose instead of by luck.

Find the overlap first

Before you propose anything, work out when each person is actually available. The fastest method is to line everyone up against a single reference and look for where their working days intersect.

  1. Write down each person's city and their normal working hours (say 9am to 6pm).
  2. Convert those hours into one shared reference zone, such as UTC.
  3. Find the stretch where every person's window is still open at once. That is your overlap.
  4. Choose a time inside the overlap, then convert it back to each person's local clock to sense-check it.
Aim for the middle of the overlap

If the overlap is 4pm to 6pm in London, pick 4:30pm, not 5:59pm. A little buffer means a dropped call or an overrun doesn't push someone straight past the end of their day.

Respect working hours, not just clocks

A time can be technically "the same day" everywhere and still be a bad idea. 8am in New York is 1pm in London and 9pm in Singapore: awake, but firmly into someone's evening. Treat the edges of the day as off-limits unless everyone has agreed otherwise, and remember that "working hours" vary by person and culture, not just by zone.

If you meet the same group regularly, it is worth rotating who takes the awkward slot. Asking the same person to join at 10pm every week is how goodwill quietly erodes.

Watch out for daylight saving

This is the trap that catches everyone. Countries change their clocks on different dates, and some do not change at all. For a couple of weeks each spring and autumn, the gap between two cities can be an hour different from what you expect, so a recurring call silently shifts.

Confirm the time on the real date

Never assume a fixed offset. Check what the local time will be on the actual day of the meeting, especially in late March, late October, and early November.

Let Atlas do the math

All of this is exactly what Atlas handles for you. You add each teammate's city once; Atlas pins them on a world map, shades each person's working hours, and proposes the slot with the best overlap, daylight saving already accounted for. When you have a time, one tap writes it to your calendar in everyone's correct local time. No spreadsheet, no mental arithmetic.

Frequently asked

What is the easiest way to find a meeting time across time zones?
List each person's working hours in their own time zone, then look for the window where they all overlap. Pick a time inside that overlap and convert it back to each person's local clock to sense-check it.
How do I deal with daylight saving time?
Different countries change clocks on different dates, so the gap between two cities can shift by an hour for a couple of weeks each spring and autumn. Always confirm the local time on the actual meeting date rather than assuming a fixed offset.
Can Atlas pick the time for me?
Yes. Atlas pins everyone on a world map, shades each person's working hours, and proposes the slot with the best overlap, then writes it to your calendar in one tap.
Written by the Atlas team

We build Atlas, a native macOS app for scheduling meetings across time zones — find the overlap, respect everyone's hours, and add it to your calendar in one tap.

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