Best Meeting Time for Multiple Time Zones

Being able to work remotely from anywhere in the world is awesome. But as all digital nomads know this lifestyle comes with its own complexities, such as unreliable internet access and power outages, as well as simpler issues like finding the best meeting time for multiple time zones. 

Decentralized teams that are distributed all over the world are not uncommon in our hyper connected reality. 

This means that your customer service representatives may be in Bangalore, India; your marketing manager books a meeting room twice a week in San Antonio, Texas while the rest of his team are in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Los Angeles, California; your main developer is currently in Venice, Italy, but he tends to move to a different city every 3 months and tries out all the different coworking spaces available until he finds the one that he likes most. 

Meanwhile your headquarters are registered to an office building in Hong Kong, but you yourself work out of Singapore. 

While the internet has made worldwide communication easier than ever, it can’t do anything about the different time zones, and although finding the best meeting time for multiple time zones might seem challenging, it really isn’t too complex. 

For starters, if all participants are in the american continent, then the best time to schedule a meeting is 2 pm EST. Having a meeting at this time is just perfect for everyone across the continent because it isn’t too early for people in California, and not too late for people in Brazil for example. 

An added benefit of scheduling a meeting at 2 pm EST is that you can give participants the option of having it an hour before or after and it will still fit everyone’s schedules comfortably. 

If you are working with a globally distributed team, finding the best meeting time for all the time zones involved is a little more complicated, but doable. 

The best meeting time that accommodates the most time zones around the world is 8 am EST. Of course this means that some participants will be fresh out of bed and a few others will have to stay up a bit later than usual, so make sure to keep this sacrifice in mind and try not to book more than 2 global meetings per week.

About Andrés Sanjose

Andrés Sanjose is a writer and editor based in Guatemala. He previously lived in Berlin for 10 years where he witnessed the birth and amazing evolution of the Virtual Office phenomenon, while working as a freelancer in the german capital. He is very interested in what the future holds for this exciting industry and loves to write about it.