Time Zone Tamer: Simplifying Global Scheduling
The Paris 2024 Olympics are in full swing, and I am absolutely in my element. I am a self-proclaimed Olympics Junkie, to the point that my husband jokes that every other year he is single for 2.5 weeks as I am immersed in the winter or summer competitions….and by immersed, I mean that I’ve been known to have up to 5 different devices playing different live streams at the same time. However, one of the main hurdles I generally have to overcome when it comes to the Olympics is the time difference between California and the host city (Paris, Beijing, Tokyo, Pyeongchang, Rio de Janeiro, etc.). When three consecutive Olympics were held in Asia (2018, 2021, and 2022), it was especially difficult to watch the competition because of how different the time zones were. There were a lot of late nights/early mornings for me those weeks. I am definitely looking forward to the summer games being held in Los Angeles in 2028!
This got me thinking about the tedious work many administrative professionals do across many time zones. I am in the Los Angeles area, so we are in the Pacific Time Zone. My organization’s main headquarters is in the Central Time Zone, but altogether, we have over 100 offices in 24 countries around the world. This has been a culture shock to me, having come from a private university where most of the meetings I set were in person on the campus, so time zones weren’t a factor. I’ve had my fair share of scheduling hiccups with adjusting to considering time zones for basically every meeting at the same time as jumping from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365. Still, I have found that there are some simple tools and techniques to streamline the work needed to get those meetings scheduled.
There are many options for tools that can be used for calculating time zone differences. Some may use timeanddate.com to help with conversions, which is a good tool, but I wanted to use a tool that not only streamlined my work to make it as quick, accurate, and simple as possible, but was also integrated with my Outlook. Therefore, the main tool(s) I use for ensuring that meetings I schedule are within appropriate time slots within all of the attendees’ respective time zones come from Haefa Mansour, ShareCal and EA Buddy. The websites are very similar, but EA Buddy is the individual user version, and ShareCal is the more robust enterprise version. Both options have a Time Zone Converter tool within them, and it’s even available on the free version of EA Buddy. They are almost identical, but ShareCal offers a couple of extra perks.
Here is what the Time Zone Converter tool looks like on EA Buddy:
And here is what it looks like on ShareCal. The main difference between them is EA Buddy only asks you for the locations, whereas ShareCal, being connected to your Outlook system, allows you to add the names of those in your organization, and it automatically pulls their time zone from their Outlook settings.
To use EA Buddy or ShareCal:
In the top two boxes, type in the internal participant’s name (ShareCal only), location, and/or time zone for all of the meeting participants.
Compare the time zones in the “Suggested Time Windows” section. Green means within standard working hours, yellow means within standard awake hours, red means within standard night/sleep hours. What opportunities do you see for meetings that would allow for the most participants to be in green/yellow?
Using the “enter available time windows” section, start entering all of the date/time slot options you would like to try to schedule the meeting for.
In the “Email Draft” section, you will now see that all options have been entered, with every time slot converted into each time zone you entered into the top two boxes! From here you can click to copy the times, copy the email (EA Buddy), create a time grid (ShareCal), or ask it to create an email for you (which works with Outlook, not Gmail).
Here is a quick video to see this in action on the :
I love how this tool is set up so that you are not only creating a comprehensive list and email to share available time slots with attendees, but also it provides you with the time information you need to include in the actual calendar invite to clear up any confusion. Here is what I have learned to do when creating a calendar invite:
Enter the date & time zone as your (or your executive’s) local time.
Make sure the “Time Zones” box is checked!!
Use time date/time line of text you copied from ShareCal or EA Buddy and paste it at the top of the note section
Insert a horizontal line underneath that that line of text.
Now, build out the rest of the invite.
When I have the line of text placed above the horizontal line, it highlights it for attendees to ensure that they know not only what time the meeting is happening for them, but also when it is happening for others so they can be conscientious. Underneath that line I list out important information about the meeting (agenda items, expectations, etc.), and then, if the meeting is virtual, I will add another horizontal line before I click the button to add the Teams or Zoom link. By doing this, everything is compartmentalized and easy-to-read.
This is simply what I have learned over the last few months of having to schedule out meetings crossing time zones, but would love to hear from you! What tips and tricks do you have when it comes to time zone taming? Leave a comment below to join the discussion!
