How would you like an hour of extra daylight in the afternoon?
Would you be willing to trade an hour of morning light for it?
A tide of support for keeping clocks on Daylight Saving Time (DST) year-round is growing around the world. In 2018, an EU-sponsored survey of 4.6 million respondents revealed that 80% favor leaving clocks on DST year-round. More recently, the U.S. Senate approved a bill in early 2022 that would make DST permanent in this country. While it still requires House of Representatives approval, it seems that a majority of Americans favor the change.
Many people have strong opinions on one side or the other, voicing thoughts on later winter sunsets to school children’s safety on dark mornings, disruptions in sleep and general health effects of changing the clocks twice a year.
But what would this mean for time keeping around the world? People are fairly used to dealing with time zones and differences in DST observances, even within a single country. The U.S. states of Hawaii and Arizona keep Standard Time all year. Electronic calendars and digital apps have made it easier to keep track than in the old days of scheduling manually and confirming by telephone. But syncing shared calendars for recurring events — or across time zones during a period when a DST change might happen in one region and not another – takes extra care.
A few suggestions:
- Get to know your shared calendar features so that you understand whose time zone will remain fixed for the scheduled event, and who can expect a time shift for part of the year.
- Keep up with pending legislation in countries, states, and territories where you do business. Confirm any one-time events with all parties to sync your schedules.
- Refer to apps and sites like Timeanddate, World Time Server, or World Time Buddy to view time zones around the world at a glance, check the time in a specific location, or to choose a meeting time across a visual scale of options and cities.
Note that Living Abroad’s International Relocation Center shows the current capital city time on every country report homepage. Also use our global ‘World Maps and Time Zones’ resources to keep yourself informed and on time, wherever you do business.
Personal aside:
Speaking of time, I heard an interesting NPR interview with Oliver Burkeman, author of “4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals” about how to make the most of our limited time on earth. I haven’t read it yet but am picking it up at my library today. If anyone has read it already, drop me a note to let me know what you think!
Written by Ellen Harris, GMS, Product Manager, Content Group
