# Time Zones Meeting Planner: The Free Way in Google and Outlook > Build a free time zones meeting planner in Google Calendar, Outlook or a spreadsheet grid, step by step, and see the point where a meeting poll takes over. _Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/time-zone-meeting-planner — The Professional's Toolkit · updated October 2026_ --- A time zones meeting planner is any view that lines up the local hours of every city in a meeting, so you can see which slot falls inside everyone's working day. You don't need a separate app for it. Google Calendar and Outlook can both show extra time zones on the calendar grid, and both can compare attendees' free and busy times. **The method:** list each person's city, find the overlap of their working hours, then check real availability before you send the invite. **50** — guests Google Calendar's Find a time can compare at once, if they share their calendars with you - **3** — time zones on the Google Calendar grid (primary, secondary, tertiary) - **2-3** — zones in Outlook: 3 in the latest Microsoft 365, 2 in Outlook 2016 - **1 week** — each fall when New York and London are 4 hours apart, not 5 ## What a time zones meeting planner has to show you A useful planner answers two questions, and most free setups only answer one. The first is about clocks: what time is 9 a.m. in New York for the person in London and the person in Bengaluru? The second is about calendars: of the hours that look humane for everyone, which ones are actually free? Clocks are easy. Calendars are not. A world clock solves the first. A free/busy view solves the second. You want both on one screen, or at least in one routine you repeat the same way each time. There is also a third, quieter question: whose evening gets sacrificed. With three or more zones there is often no slot inside everyone's nine-to-five. A good planner makes that visible, so you can rotate the early or late slot instead of always asking the same person to stay up. Keep a note of who took the bad hour last time. It is the cheapest fairness tool there is. > 💡 **Rotate the bad hour:** When no slot fits every working day, alternate who takes the early or late call and note who had it last. ## Set up the free planner in Google Calendar Google Calendar can show your primary time zone plus a secondary and a tertiary one, side by side on the left of the grid [1]. That turns your week view into a three-city planner. 1. On your computer, open Google Calendar, click the Settings menu, then **Settings**. 2. On the left, under General, click **Time zone**. 3. Check **Show additional time zones**, choose a Secondary time zone and, if you need it, a Tertiary time zone. 4. For more cities, go to the **World clock** section, click **Show world clock**, then **Add time zone** and search for each city. When you create the event, it appears in your local time and in the local time of everyone you invite, even in other zones. If a meeting is anchored somewhere else, open the event's **More options**, click **Time zone** next to the time and pick the city. Google also stores events in UTC to avoid daylight saving problems. ### Find a time that is actually free The grid tells you what the clocks say. The **Find a time** tab tells you who is free [2]. Click Create, then Event, add your guests and click **Find a time**. You can filter to required guests and compare availability for up to 50 guests. The catch is in the fine print: guests must have shared their calendars with you. Colleagues in the same Google Workspace usually have. A client at another company usually has not, and their row will tell you nothing useful. ## The same grid in Outlook, plus the Scheduling Assistant Outlook does the same job with different menus. In new Outlook and Outlook on the web, go to Settings, then **Calendar > View**, select **Add time zone**, search for the city, add a label and check **Show in calendar** [3]. In classic Outlook, it lives under **File > Options > Calendar**, where you tick Show a second time zone and, if needed, a third. The latest Outlook for Microsoft 365 shows up to three zones; older classic versions such as Outlook 2016 show two. The extra zone only appears in day or week view. For availability, use the **Scheduling Assistant** [4]: 1. Create a new meeting (Ctrl+Shift+Q in classic Outlook) and add attendees as Required or Optional. 2. Select **Scheduling Assistant** on the ribbon. Each attendee gets a row. 3. Read the colors: dark blue is busy, light blue hashed is tentative, light gray is outside working hours. 4. Pick a slot that is open for everyone, or use **AutoPick**, then select Send. Two details matter here. Microsoft says the Scheduling Assistant works when you use a Microsoft 365 or Exchange account. And when you show other attendees' free/busy times, Outlook adjusts their busy blocks into your own time zone, so the grid is always read from the organizer's clock. > ⚠ **A blank row is not free:** Find a time and the Scheduling Assistant only see calendars shared with you, so an external guest's empty row tells you nothing about their week. ## A spreadsheet grid for world time zones When half the group is on Google and half on Outlook, a shared spreadsheet is the neutral ground. It is also the clearest way to see the overlap, because nothing is hidden behind a settings menu. 1. Put one column per city, with the city name and its current offset from UTC in the header. 2. In the first column, list your own hours, one row per hour. 3. Fill each other column with the local time for that row by applying its offset. 4. Shade every cell between 9:00 and 17:00 in each city. 5. The rows where every cell is shaded are your candidate slots. If none are, the best rows are the ones with the fewest hours outside anyone's day, split as evenly as you can. Here is a mini example for a team in New York, London and Bengaluru in mid-November 2026, when New York is UTC−5, London UTC+0 and Bengaluru UTC+5:30. | New York | London | Bengaluru | Verdict | |---|---|---|---| | 7:00 | 12:00 | 17:30 | Early for New York | | 8:00 | 13:00 | 18:30 | Best compromise | | 9:00 | 14:00 | 19:30 | Late for Bengaluru | | 10:00 | 15:00 | 20:30 | Too late for Bengaluru | No row is inside all three working days. So the honest answer is 8:00 New York, which splits the cost: an hour early for New York, ninety minutes late for Bengaluru. Or alternate 7:00 and 9:00 New York week by week, so the off-hours fall on each side in turn. That is the kind of trade a grid makes obvious and a single world clock hides. > 💡 **Write every slot in every zone:** Propose times as 8:00 New York / 13:00 London / 18:30 Bengaluru so nobody converts by hand and gets it wrong. ### Watch the clock-change weeks Offsets are not fixed. The UK leaves summer time on the last Sunday of October and the US on the first Sunday of November, so for about a week each fall the New York to London gap is four hours instead of five (in 2026, October 25 to November 1). A recurring meeting set in one city's time zone keeps its local time there and moves by an hour for the others during those weeks. Put the change dates in the sheet header and recheck the grid twice a year. ## Scheduling group meetings with people outside your calendar Find a time and the Scheduling Assistant only see calendars that are shared with you. For clients, candidates or partners, you are back to email. Keep it short and do the conversion for them. Offer three slots, each written in every recipient's local time, not just yours: "Tuesday 8:00 New York / 13:00 London / 18:30 Bengaluru." Ask them to reply with every option that works, not just the first. Then send one calendar invite. That's it. Because Google and Outlook both show the event in each guest's local time, nobody has to redo your math. This works well up to about four people. Past that, replies cross in the inbox, someone answers in their own time zone without saying so, and you rebuild the grid by hand. For the method behind picking the slot itself, our guide to [scheduling a meeting across time zones](/articles/schedule-meeting-across-time-zones) covers fairness rules and recurring meetings in more depth. ## Where the free time zone planner stops working The built-in way holds up for an internal team on one calendar system. It starts to break at three specific points. - **People outside your organization.** Free/busy views only show calendars shared with you, so every external guest becomes a blank row and an email thread. - **More than three time zones.** The calendar grid shows three zones at most in Google Calendar and in classic Outlook for Microsoft 365 (two in Outlook 2016). The world clock adds cities, but not into the grid where you pick the slot. - **Polling five or more people.** The email method turns into a reply-all tally you keep by hand, and one missed answer means starting over. At that point, a meeting poll does the tally for you and converts the candidate slots into each voter's own time zone. SavvyCal, for example, [shows each voter the poll in their own time zone](/articles/savvycal-meeting-polls) on its free account. The cards below cover the tools that handle this part directly, and our comparison of [group scheduling tools](/articles/group-scheduling-tools) goes through every option by situation. ### SavvyCal — solves this Create a meeting poll with a few candidate slots; each voter sees them converted to their own time zone, can change their answer, and a teammate option keeps you from offering times your side cannot make. - Where it stops: The Free account runs polls but cannot take bookings; anyone booking you needs a Basic or Premium plan. - Plan: Polls: Free account. Collective links (several hosts, one meeting): Basic - How SavvyCal does it: [How SavvyCal meeting polls work](https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/savvycal-meeting-polls) - More: [SavvyCal](https://professionalstoolkit.com/tools/savvycal) ### Calendly — solves this Send a Meeting Poll for a one-off meeting with up to 40 people; invitees vote, and polls and event pages detect each invitee's time zone automatically. - Where it stops: Group and collective event types are not on Free, and every host in a shared event needs a paid seat. - Plan: Collective and group event types: Standard; round robin: Teams - More: [Calendly](https://professionalstoolkit.com/tools/calendly) ### YouCanBookMe — solves this Enter up to 50 candidate time slots in a free meeting poll; on booking pages, the booker's time zone is detected and availability is shown in their local time. - Where it stops: Group sessions are not on Free; group bookings cap at 50 people and unique video links do not work with them. - Plan: Meeting polls: Free. Group sessions: Individual. Round robin: Team - How YouCanBookMe does it: [Set up YouCanBookMe step by step](https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/how-to-use-youcanbookme) - More: [YouCanBookMe](https://professionalstoolkit.com/tools/youcanbookme) ## FAQ **What is the best time for a meeting between the US and Europe?** The usual overlap is the US Eastern morning and the European afternoon, roughly 8:00 to 11:00 in New York and 13:00 to 16:00 in London. Adding the US West Coast squeezes it to about 8:00 to 9:00 Pacific. **Do invitees see the meeting in their own time zone?** Yes. Google Calendar and Outlook store events in UTC and show the invite in each guest's local time, so you only set the time once. **Can I see more than three time zones in Google Calendar?** Not on the grid: it shows your primary zone plus a secondary and a tertiary one. The world clock in Settings can add more cities, but they sit beside the calendar, not in the grid where you pick the slot. **Does daylight saving time break recurring meetings across time zones?** It shifts them. A recurring meeting keeps its local time in the zone it was set in, so for the weeks when only one country has changed its clocks, it moves by an hour for everyone else. ## The bottom line You already own a decent time zones meeting planner. Add two or three extra zones to Google Calendar or Outlook, use Find a time or the Scheduling Assistant for colleagues whose calendars you can see, and keep a shared spreadsheet grid when the group mixes systems or needs the overlap spelled out. Rotate the bad hour, recheck the grid in the clock-change weeks, and write every proposed slot in every local time. Move to a meeting poll when guests sit outside your organization, when you pass three zones, or when you are tallying replies from five or more people. ## Sources [1] Google Calendar Help — https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37064?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop (Nov 2026) [2] Google Calendar Help — https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/6294878?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop (Nov 2026) [3] Microsoft Support — https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/getstarted/manage-time-zone-settings-in-outlook (Nov 2026) [4] Microsoft Support — https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/use-the-scheduling-assistant-and-room-finder-for-meetings-in-outlook (Nov 2026)