215. Trouble with Time Zones

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You’ll learn how to set time zones properly on your phone or computer, how to get the time in another zone, and how to schedule calendar events in different time zone.

1:00 How to add a multiple time zone clock on your phone’s home screen

Both iOS and Android give us ways to add a widget to the home screen that displays a clock for more than one time zone.

iOS: Long press on the home screen and you’ll see a + appear in the upper right corner. Tap that and widget options appear. Scroll thru them until you see clock. Now you have 3 choices – take a look and pick the one you want and tap “Add widget.” Last you edit the widget and select the cities you want.

Android: Long-press on blank area on a home screen then tap on the widgets icon at the bottom. Find the clock and choose the dual clock by touch and hold. Tap on the cities and tap change to enter the city you want. Tap back to go back to your home screen.

6:40 Intro

12:26 How to set the proper time on your devices as you travel

Make sure that you change the time zone and not the time itself. If you change the time without changing the time zone, you’ll create a royal mess!

Cell phones usually are set to get the time automatically from the connection to the cell towers. If you don’t want it set automatically, you can turn that off in settings. On a windows computer, you right-click on the time in the lower right corner, then choose Adjust Date/Time. Make sure to adjust the time zone, not the time itself. You can also choose to set time zone automatically, just realize that sometimes it takes a while.

17:19 How to find out the time somewhere else (video 564) 564.SM-Convert Time Zones Tip

There are lots of tools available for converting time zones, but we think the easiest is just to ask Google. “Hey Google – convert 7pm Miami time to Los Angeles”

21:12 How time zones work

Time zones are calculated by adding or subtracting hours from a standard time. That standard time is called GMT or UTC (Greenwich Mean Time, Universal Time Coordinated. This time comes from a place in England that is on the Prime Meridian – the starting point for longitudes on the planet. When you enter a time into Google Calendar, it is actually storing the GMT time, then it uses the Time Zone to add or subtract from there.

24:00 How to enter times and time zones in Google Calendar

697.OT-Google Calendar and Time Zones

When you enter a time into a Calendar event, you are also entering a time zone, whether you know it or not. The default time zone comes from the Settings for the Calendar. Click the gear icon at the top right of the calendar, choose Settings, then scroll down to Time Zone. Note that you can set a primary and secondary time zone. If you do then both times should appear on your event.

To schedule an event in a different time zone from where you are, just click on the link to Time Zone and specify the zone for the location where the event is happening and make sure to set the time for the local time where the event is happening.