Time zone tips

Timezones can be confusing. It gets worse when countries use Daylight Saving on different dates to throw your international conference calls into chaos, or your people use confusing abbreviations to describe their timezones. Follow our few tips below to help you work it out:

1) General Rules of Thumb

New York is generally 5 hours behind London/Dublin
Los Angeles and San Francisco are generally 8 hours behind London/Dublin
Paris and Geneva are generally 1 hour ahead of London/Dublin

2) Exceptions to the Rules of Thumb

There are always exceptions: since about 2005, North America have changed their Daylight Saving on different dates to Europe. This means that for 1 or 2 weeks (eg 25th Oct - 1st Nov 2009), the above general rules of thumb no longer apply. During this week, New York is 4 hours behind London/Dublin. The same will happen in March/April 2010.

3) Timezone Abbreviations

Timezone abbreviations can be confusing - common ones are:

GMT - Greenwich Mean Time (timezone of the UK/Ireland during the winter)
BST - British Summer Time (timezone of the UK/Ireland during the summer)
EDT - Eastern Daylight Saving Time (timezone of the US East Coast (eg New York) during the summer)
EST - Easter Standard Time (timezone of the US East Coast (eg New York) during the winter - aka 'Eastern Standard')
PDT - Pacific Daylight Saving Time (timezone of the US West Coast (eg Los Angeles) during the summer)
PST - Pacific Standard Time (timezone of the US West Coast (eg Los Angeles) during the winter)
UTC - Universal. ordinary people shouldn't use this time zone....

4) Word your invitations carefully (maybe without Abbreviations)

Use city and country names to clarify things (eg when organising your meeting just say "London/UK time") instead of Timezone abbreviations.

5) Use the internet to help you out

Use popular websites to work out your timezones, eg www.timeanddate.com or www.google.com or www.agreeadate.com

You might also like to know

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