Decluttering throughout the day is critical for keeping your functional zones organized and genuinely enjoying the productivity of your living space. When everything has a dedicated area, it is much easier to use and store stuff. The trend of working from home has drastically increased after the COVID-19 epidemic. The bedroom is usually too cozy for focused work, and most individuals use their living rooms for meetings and professional duties. By creating distinct zones for activities you tend to do most during the day, you can avoid clutter and save time and effort searching for things you need.
I’ve found that having a shared team calendar with everyone’s working hours marked can also be super helpful. That way, you can quickly see who’s online when and plan your meetings and collaborations accordingly. Don’t forget to schedule regular team meetings that work for everyone. Even if it means some team members have to wake up early or stay up late, it’s essential to have face-to-face communication to ensure everyone is on the same page. Another rad strategy is to use tools like Slack to keep everyone in the loop.
Building Team Trust
If Slack seems awfully quiet, it might be because your colleagues in another country are celebrating a holiday. One of the ways you can keep tabs on these is by subscribing to the relevant calendars in Google Calendar. From the web interface, click the plus button living and working in different time zones next to Other calendars, then Browse calendars of interest, followed by Regional holidays.
You can even set a pre-trip alarm or timer to gradually shift your routine. They use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and Zulu time to schedule crews legally. For a closer look at how airlines use time zones in flight planning, there’s a full breakdown available. A significant advantage of a team working across multiple time zones is that you can run operations around the clock. If you’ve covered all the time zones, someone worldwide will always be working and serving customers without needing late-night shifts.
- Let’s get a closer look at what working across time zones entails and how you can adopt better strategies to accommodate the demands of a globally distributed team.
- For everyone to understand the different times, use a simple timezone converter tool.
- The Alaska Time Zone covers the state of Alaska and is one hour behind Pacific Time during standard time and the same time as Pacific Time during daylight saving time.
- The standard time used in a time zone is typically set by the local government or governing body.
- Specificity is a fundamental factor in building a remote form of work.
Build a Strong Team Culture
Workers familiar with that culture can improve the customer service experience while also removing the time zone issues from your plate. When the time changes in the United States, that time zone app will become important again as you figure out who changed and who didn’t. We’ll email you 1-3 times per week—and never share your information.
Skywatching Tips for November 2025
It allows West Coast coworkers the time to have their coffee and get into their workday without having to keep East Coasters in the office too late. We’ve all seen the memes about the dreaded team meeting that could have been an email. Thank you for reading our content on scheduling a meeting with a different time zone in Microsoft Teams. We have given you the steps to schedule a meeting in a different time zone.
It’s also important to be extra clear in your communication and avoid slang or colloquialisms that might not translate well. How do you ensure effective communication when dealing with time zone challenges, especially when language barriers come into play? Another strategy that has worked wonders for me is documenting everything. From meeting notes to project updates, having a central repository of information ensures that everyone is in the loop, regardless of time zone. “When an employee’s role is collaborative and non-routine, they place a premium on synchronous communication,” says Pan Fang. It can negatively affect work-life balance, and has a direct impact on your personal time,” says Pan Fang.
Subscribe to multiple holiday calendars
A video conferencing app is great for connecting a remote team, and RingCentral offers the flexibility of video call, voice call, and team messaging—all on the same app. By sharing the meeting agenda ahead of time, you give any teammates who can’t make it the chance to ask questions or share updates in advance. It also allows you to make the actual meeting as efficient as possible, since everyone has the opportunity (and no excuse) to come prepared.
- You will have set a time zone for a scheduled meeting in Microsoft Teams once the steps have been completed.
- No additional changes need to be made once the steps above have been completed.
- That fatigue, brain fog, digestive upset, mood swings, all come from misaligned rhythms.
- For example, in the United States, Arizona opts out of daylight saving, meaning they share a time zone with California for only half the year.
How time zone affects your productivity
For example, if you live in a large country or work in an area where the time zone is different, you may encounter a situation with different timings. If you schedule a meeting in Microsoft Teams, you may want to adjust time zone settings. Have a read-through as I give you a step-by-step guide on how you can adjust time zone settings for scheduled meetings in Microsoft Teams.
Learn how to collaborate and communicate effectively
It’s a simple, text-based world clock provides an at-a-glance update. It’s impossible to overstate how crucial Slack—a team chat app that makes it easy to search through all of your team’s messages—is to remote teams. It’s the one app that comes up in nearly every discussion of how to make remote teams work. Even reporters from The New York Times have found that Slack helps them stay connected to their newsroom while away on assignments.
Helpful tips for how to set up a workflow
Use this overlapping time for collaborative activities and allow team members to work at their own productive pace during the rest of the day. In distributed teams, some members may be disadvantaged due to time differences. As a leader, you should implement measures to ensure no team members are subject to unnecessary pressure or unfair expectations. Of course, for organizations working across time zones, this type of effort would involve coming up with creative ways to have everyone on board and involved in the conversation. It takes really getting to know your team members and tapping into their shared interests to get the casual conversation going.
As I reported previously, two studies have shown that breast cancer risk is higher in the western parts of time zones; the first was conducted in European Russia and the second in the U.S. The authors of these two studies suggest it is the chronic disruption of circadian rhythms from getting up in the dark that may be the culprit. Once the steps above have been completed, users will automatically be informed of the changes that have been made to the meeting. Users will also have the option to either adjust their scheduling approach or they can request a change if necessary. If you have added the wrong time zone, you can use the steps above to change the time zone again based on what is required. Drink water, get sunlight, avoid naps, and don’t stare at your phone at bedtime.