Meeting Planner

Put several cities side by side, hour by hour, and see immediately where the working days overlap.

    Hours are given on a 24-hour scale. The first city in the list sets the rows of the grid.

    How it works

    Every city you add is laid out as a row of hours for the same day, aligned so that a column is one instant everywhere. Reading down a column tells you what each participant's clock says at that moment, which is the question an invitation actually turns on.

    Hours are shaded by how reasonable they are locally, and the longest unbroken run where every city is inside working hours is highlighted. The run has to be unbroken: a scattering of individually acceptable hours is no use for scheduling a single call, so a broken sequence is not reported as a window.

    Working hours are a convention, not a fact. The grid shows the surrounding hours precisely so you can make the judgement yourself — an 08:00 start is ordinary in some places and an imposition in others.

    Examples

    London, New York and Singapore. London and New York overlap comfortably through the London afternoon. Singapore overlaps New York not at all within normal hours, so somebody has to take the call early or late. The grid shows that before the invite goes out rather than after.

    Choosing the least bad slot. Where nothing suits everyone, the longest unbroken run of acceptable hours is highlighted, so the compromise is explicit and can be rotated fairly across a recurring series.

    Checking the date, not only the hour. Set the date as well: a slot that works in July may not in November, once one city has changed its clocks and another has not.

    Practical notes

    Working hours are a convention and they vary more than people expect. A 09:00 to 17:00 assumption fits much of northern Europe and North America poorly elsewhere: long midday breaks, earlier starts and Friday half-days are all normal somewhere, and none of them appear in a grid of hours.

    The weekend is not universal either. Friday and Saturday are the weekend across much of the Gulf, so a Thursday afternoon slot that looks fine from London may be the end of the week for a colleague in Riyadh.

    Where no window exists, resist the temptation to pick the least-bad hour permanently. A call that is always 06:00 for the same person is a standing cost borne by one team; rotating it across a recurring series spreads that, and the grid makes the alternatives visible enough to argue about fairly.

    Frequently asked questions

    Can I change what counts as working hours?

    Yes — set any start and end hour, for example 08 to 16 or 10 to 18. The same range is applied to every city.

    Does it account for the date changing overnight?

    Yes. Hover or tap a cell to see the local date for that city, which may be the day before or after the reference city.

    How many cities can I compare?

    Up to ten at a time. Beyond that the grid becomes hard to read on a phone.

    What counts as working hours here?

    A conventional 09:00 to 17:00. The grid deliberately shows the hours either side too, because an 08:00 start is unremarkable in some places and unreasonable in others, and that judgement is yours rather than the tool's.

    Does it account for public holidays?

    No. It compares hours, not calendars. Check holidays separately, particularly across countries where they do not coincide.

    Why is there no overlap at all?

    Some pairs genuinely have none within working hours — anywhere roughly twelve hours apart. The honest answer is that someone has to take the call outside their day.

    Can I save a set of cities?

    The world clock keeps a persistent list; the planner is intended for working out a specific meeting rather than for monitoring.

    Does it suggest a time automatically?

    It highlights the longest window where everyone is inside working hours. Choosing within that window is a judgement about the people involved.

    What is the best time for a global meeting?

    Usually the early European afternoon, which catches the American morning and the Asian evening. There is no slot that suits everyone, which is why rotating the inconvenience matters.

    Guides on this topic

    Related tools