OneTaskBy Tim King · Updated
Meeting Planner
Hourly Grid Across Time Zones, Working Hours Shaded and Calendar File Export
OneTask is free, with no sign-up, and built by one person.
If this tool saved you time, a coffee helps keep new ones coming.
How the Meeting Planner works
This meeting planner puts every city in your meeting on one hour-by-hour grid for the date you pick, shades each person's working hours, and picks the hour that keeps the most people inside their working day. Click any other hour to compare it, then copy the times for the invite or download a calendar file.
Scheduling across time zones is a small optimisation problem: you are looking for the hour that inconveniences the fewest people, and when nobody's day overlaps, deciding who takes the early call and who takes the late one.
Meeting planner grid: read it column by column
Each row is a city and each column is the same instant everywhere. Green cells fall inside that city's working hours, amber cells are early morning or evening, and grey cells are night. The row along the bottom counts how many cities are in hours for that column, and the column outlined in orange is the best overlap. A small date label appears where a city crosses midnight, because the same meeting can be on Tuesday in London and Wednesday in Sydney.
When there is no good time
Working days in London, New York and Sydney do not overlap at all. When that happens the planner still picks the column that keeps the most people in hours, breaking ties by how close everyone is to the middle of their day, and says plainly that no hour fits everyone. Rotating the inconvenient slot between offices is fairer than always making the same city dial in at 7 am.
Daylight saving is handled for the date
The grid is built for the date you choose, so a meeting planned for November uses November's offsets even if you plan it in October. The invite text lists each city's local time and zone, and the .ics file is written in UTC so any calendar app places it correctly. You can also see the chosen hour on the world map, with night shaded, below the grid.
FAQ
How does the meeting planner pick the best time?
It counts how many cities have the whole hour inside their working day and picks the hour with the highest count. When several hours tie, it picks the one where everyone is closest to the middle of their working day, so nobody is right at the start or end of it.
Can I change the working hours?
Yes. Set when the working day starts and ends and the grid and best time update straight away. The same hours are used for every city, so if one office keeps different hours, widen the range and check that row by eye.
Does the .ics file work with Google Calendar and Outlook?
Yes. The file uses the standard iCalendar format with the start and end written in UTC, which Google Calendar, Outlook and Apple Calendar all import. Each person's calendar shows it at their own local time, so you do not need to convert anything before sending it.
Which city's date does the grid use?
The first city in the list. Its midnight is the first column and the date you pick is its date. Put the organiser's city first, or remove and re-add cities to change the order, and the grid is rebuilt around that city's day.
See also: all Time Zones and Travel tools, Calendars, Countdowns, Durations, Work and Contracts, Date Formats, Sun and Daylight.
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