How to find a fair meeting time across time zones
Start with real availability, compare a specific date and share inconvenient hours fairly.
Collect availability before comparing clocks
Ask each participant for their city, normal working hours and any fixed constraints. A city’s current time cannot tell you whether a person is available. Someone may work an early shift, observe a different weekend or have a school collection at the end of the day. Record those constraints in local time first. Then choose the meeting date; without a date, seasonal changes can make an otherwise sensible comparison inaccurate.
Find the actual overlap
Use the comparison tool to inspect the same hours in two cities, then narrow the result to the participants’ availability. For London and New York, afternoon in one city often meets morning in the other, but the precise relationship changes around some transitions. For a larger group, check every participant rather than assuming the middle time zone represents everyone. A one-hour overlapping window also needs enough room for the full meeting duration.
Make the inconvenience visible
If no comfortable overlap exists, shorten the live discussion, move routine updates into writing or alternate meeting times. Rotating an early or late slot can distribute the cost more fairly than permanently favoring the organizer. Ask whether an attendee really needs to join live and provide a useful written outcome afterward. A calculator can show local hours; the team still needs to decide what is acceptable for the people involved.
Confirm and revisit the choice
Send one invitation with the correct time zone and a clear agenda. Include both local dates if the call crosses midnight for anyone. Before repeating the meeting for months, inspect dates around relevant seasonal changes. Check holidays separately because matching working-hour settings do not establish that a day is a working day locally. Our recurring-meeting guide explains which location’s clock stays fixed and how to communicate exceptions without creating duplicate invitations.
Sources
Related reading
Why recurring meetings move when clocks change
A meeting can stay fixed on one person’s calendar and shift on another’s.
The late-October week when London and New York are four hours apart
A worked scheduling example for the gap between the UK and US autumn transitions.
How to publish an event time for an international audience
Make the date, location and intended instant clear wherever your invitation is read.
Cross-time-zone handoffs: pass work on with a clear deadline
Keep work moving between locations with an explicit owner, an unambiguous cutoff and a written handoff.