Conducting business with international clients can mean more than just a language barrier — there can be a time barrier as well.
With 24 standard time zones, it can be overwhelming to keep track of all your clients’ business hours, and scheduling tasks across time zones can be a challenge.
If your business depends on knowing what time it is everywhere, don’t worry, as there are plenty of free online tools to help you coordinate, and ensure you never unwittingly call a client at 4 a.m.
World Time Zone is a handy, at-a-glance map that lays out every region. Divided and color coded, you can quickly see which areas fall into which time zones. It also displays local times for each of the world’s capital cities.
If you want to focus on a specific region, the site is broken up by continents, so you can view an easy-to-read chart with all the time differences.
Another handy feature is the highlighting of which areas are observing Daylight Saving Time. Also, take a look at the Sun Clock feature, which (as the name implies) allows you to see in what regions the sun is still shining.
This website is pretty much as straightforward as it gets when it comes to calculating time differences. There are two clocks. The one on the left displays your local time. The one on the right will do the conversion for a number of major cities. If you simply need to know the time elsewhere in a hurry, this easy-to-use website has you covered.
If you don’t want to use an external web app, you can keep tabs on international time zones right in your GmailGmail
inbox. Simply select the “Labs” icon (the little green beaker) at the top of Gmail and scroll down to enable the “Sender Time Zone” feature. This will allow you to see what the recipient’s current local time is when you send them messages, and allay those worries about why they haven’t answered you yet: They’re probably asleep.
If you need a quick way to keep track of multiple time zones right from your inbox, you can add a Google Gadget to your side bar that displays the relevant info. You’ll need to enable this feature in Gmail Labs, so click that green beaker and enable the “Add any gadget by URL” option.
In a new tab, head over to the Google Gadgets Directory and type “Time Zones” in the search bar. There are a variety of time zone gadgets (of various quality), but a good option is one called World Time Zones.
Back in Gmail, click “Settings,” and you’ll now see a tab marked “Gadgets” has appeared. From the “World Time Zones” Gadget page, you’ll need to grab the second URL (which starts after “&url=” in the address bar, and ends in .XML). Paste it into Gmail’s gadget dialog and hit “Add.” Now, if you scroll down the left side of you inbox, you’ll see the gadget has appeared, and you can flip through all the world’s time zones without ever leaving Gmail.
The World Time Server is another helpful resource for all your international planning needs. The site shows you the current time and date for any city, country or time zone, and has a self-maintained database that adjusts for Daylight Saving Time.
Here too is a time converter, but with twist that’s great for planning long distance interactions in real time. If you were planning a meeting with a client via SkypeSkype
, or if you were to live stream a presentation that you wanted clients in different cities to be able to watch at the same time, then this time converter might be of use.
After you’ve set the time for your event, you’ll be sent a link that you can then e-mail to clients or post on your blog or TwitterTwitter profile so that people can figure out at what local time your event is starting.
There is also a meeting planner that allows you to choose up to five states, provinces or countries so you can organize the best time to have a conference call for all the parties involved. The site also offers local news and weather updates — because it never hurts to show a client that you know what’s happening in their neck of the woods.
Time and Date has the same features as the sites listed above, plus a few extras. Calendars and holiday observances are listed here and broken down by country. They are particularly helpful for scheduling important deals or conversations since each country has its own civic holidays or widely observed religious ones that differ from the North American schedule.
The site is updated regularly with news on any changes countries have made regarding their daylight saving time schedule. Another useful feature is a pull down menu of international dialing codes, since it’s not always as simple as dialing one and then the phone number to call out.
Every Time Zone is a simple, nicely designed site that is perfect for quickly accessing time zones and date changes. Your local time is generated from your IP address and is displayed as a fluorescent green bar. Other regions are listed above and below your local time, giving you an instant look at the time difference. You can drag your local time tab forward or backward to measure specific time differences as well.
With these tools, you should be more than able to manage your international meeting times. Let us know in the comments below what works best for you and how you manage working with companies in different time zones.
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Image courtesy of iStockphotoiStockphoto, JuSun
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