Google Calendar and Time Zones

Image result for time zonesSetting appointments I’ll be attending in London next week on Google Calendar has reminded me of a problem that online calendars haven’t sorted out – at least to my satisfaction (or perhaps knowledge); how to handle appointments when there are differences between time zones. In this case, when I make an appointment for 3.00 pm, I select 3.00 pm on my calendar (which is displaying Australian time) and write the details of the booking into the calendar at the end of which process I go to ‘time zone’ and set it to London time. Then the appointment disappears to some unexpected place in the middle of the night Australian time.

 

Of course when I arrive in London my computer will magically realise where it is and reset its clock and all the appointments will be at the right time (if I’ve put them in right). But the problem is that these bookings are useless if I’m looking at them in Australia. If I’m speaking to someone and they say “are you free at 1.30 pm on Wed in London” there is presumably a way to snap my calendar to display London time, but I don’t know what it is. What I’d like is to make a booking that was time zone invariant. It would be disastrous to do this if one were arranging a phone hookup between time zones, but for travelling it can keep things a lot simpler.

Does anyone know a way to do it?

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Zebee
Zebee
7 years ago
laurence
laurence
7 years ago

use the second timezone setting and you get London and Sydney.

Settings|additional timezone.

I use it all the time

laurence
laurence
7 years ago

I cannot conceptualise an appointment that is location invariant :)

Pottering
Pottering
7 years ago

By the way, there is no such thing as “Australian time”, at any given time we have between 3 and 6 time zones (mainland and Tassie).