Fundamentals
Daylight Saving Time Explained (and Why It Breaks Meetings)
What daylight saving time is, which countries use it, and how to stop it from quietly shifting your recurring meetings.
· 6 min read
Daylight saving time (DST) is the practice of moving clocks forward by an hour in spring and back in autumn to make better use of daylight. Around 70 countries observe some form of it, but the dates differ.
Why it breaks recurring meetings
The US and Europe change their clocks on different weekends, and the southern hemisphere shifts in the opposite direction. For a few weeks each year, the gap between, say, New York and London is one hour different from usual. A standing call that "always works" suddenly lands an hour early or late.
Countries that do not use DST
- India, China, Japan, and most of Africa and Asia keep a fixed offset year-round.
- Most of Arizona (US) stays on standard time.
- Several countries have abolished DST in recent years, so always verify with current data.
How to protect your schedule
- Anchor recurring meetings to one person’s timezone, not to UTC, so the meeting stays at a sensible local hour for them.
- Warn the team in the weeks when offsets are temporarily off.
- Use a planner that resolves DST automatically rather than doing the math by hand.