Scheduling with Sydney from the US, the UK, or Singapore

Sydney is not “London, but further.” New South Wales starts daylight time on the first Sunday of October and ends it on the first Sunday of April. Northern partners do the opposite half of the year, or they do not change at all. The gap with a US or UK city therefore has three settings, not two, and a meeting that was polite in July can be an after-dinner call in January without anyone editing the invite.

Queensland, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory do not observe daylight time. This article is about Sydney. Brisbane is a different page, and a Sydney to Brisbane meeting moves by an hour twice a year even though both cities are in Australia.

New York: the date changes under you

New York and Sydney run 14, 15, or 16 hours apart depending on the stretch. New York’s late afternoon is Sydney’s next morning. A 4:00 PM Monday call in New York is 8:00 AM Tuesday in Sydney when the gap is 16 hours. The Australian side is early, and they are early on the following date. People on this route miss the date more often than they miss the hour.

The 14-hour setting is the one that hurts New York. It holds from the first Sunday of April until the first Sunday of October, when Sydney is on standard time and New York is on daylight time. 8:00 AM in Sydney becomes 6:00 PM the previous evening in New York. The comfortable late-afternoon slot turns into an after-dinner one. If the series is anchored in Sydney, New York eats that move. If it is anchored in New York, Sydney’s morning gets earlier. Neither is free. Pick the side whose early or late hour is the real constraint, and write both dates into the invite. “Tuesday morning Sydney” is still Monday in New York.

There is no shared 9-to-6. Stop looking for one. A weekly live call at New York’s end of day plus a written handoff the other days is the design that survives. The handoff note is the format. The date line itself, as a thing ships and treaties move, is covered in the international date line. The scheduling version is simpler: name the calendar date in both cities every time you say “tomorrow.”

San Francisco: a bigger number can be an earlier afternoon

San Francisco and Sydney spans 17, 18, or 19 hours. Counting forward makes the pair look impossible. Count backward from Sydney’s morning.

While San Francisco is on standard time and Sydney is on daylight time, from the first Sunday of November until the second Sunday of March, the gap is 19 hours. 9:00 AM in Sydney is 2:00 PM the previous day in San Francisco. Through the long middle, from the first Sunday of April until the first Sunday of October, the gap is 17 hours and 9:00 AM Sydney is 4:00 PM in San Francisco. The larger gap gives California the earlier slot. Memorizing “about 18” books the wrong afternoon for months at a time.

Two bridges at 18 hours connect those seasons: the second Sunday of March until the first Sunday of April, and the first Sunday of October until the first Sunday of November. 9:00 AM Sydney is 3:00 PM the previous day in San Francisco. Put that in the invite as a date, not as “their morning.”

London: a nine-hour gap that behaves like no overlap

London and Sydney cycles through 9, 10, and 11 hours, and the hours fall the wrong way. Sydney is finishing as London starts. At 11 hours, which holds while Sydney is on daylight time and London is not, a 7:00 AM start in London is 6:00 PM in Sydney. That is about the last moment anyone in Sydney will pick up. Teams that do this well stop holding a weekly live meeting and hand work over: London writes at the end of its day, Sydney reads it at the start of theirs.

The 9-hour setting, from the first Sunday of April until the first Sunday of October, is the least bad. It is still an early London morning against a late Sydney afternoon. Do not describe it as overlap to someone who has not seen the grid.

Singapore: the easy clock with one sharp edge

Singapore and Sydney is two hours or three, and Singapore never changes. While Sydney is on daylight time, from the first Sunday of October until the first Sunday of April, Sydney is three hours ahead. 9:00 AM in Singapore is noon in Sydney. On standard time the gap is two hours and 9:00 AM Singapore is 11:00 AM Sydney.

Keep the live call in Singapore’s morning. 5:00 PM in Singapore is 8:00 PM or 7:00 PM in Sydney, and both of those are after a normal Sydney office has emptied. A series anchored in Singapore holds the Singapore hour and moves Sydney by an hour on the first Sunday of April and the first Sunday of October. Tell Sydney that hour in the week before. Do not wait for the empty room.

Sydney and Tokyo is the other short-gap pair: one hour or two, with a ten-hour flight. The whole workday overlaps. The thing that fails is a 6:00 PM Tokyo call, which is 7:00 PM or 8:00 PM in Sydney, and a January plan that assumes Sydney is staffed.

January

A lot of Australian leave sits between Christmas and the middle of January. Singapore, Tokyo, London, and New York are back at work. A launch review set for the first week of the year will find Sydney missing and everyone else irritated. Ask who is actually in before you freeze the date. The daylight rules for the states that move, and the ones that do not, are in daylight saving time rules by country.

This page will not pick your meeting for a team spread across Sydney, London, and San Francisco at once. Those three do not have an hour. Split the live calls by pair, and let the third city read.