How to share your availability by email without time-zone mistakes

Most scheduling mistakes come from one missing detail: the zone, the weekday or the daylight saving change. This post is part of the scheduling hub. For finding the hours that work across several cities, use the time zone meeting planner; it shows every zone hour by hour.

Time-zone rules that prevent mix-ups

1. Name each zone by a city the reader recognizes. Calendar software does the same: the IANA Time Zone Database identifies zones as Area/City, like America/New_York or Europe/London, and records when each one changed its clocks.
2. Avoid abbreviations. CST is US Central time and also China Standard Time; IST is India, Israel and Irish time. "EST" written in July is wrong, since New York is on EDT then; a city name is never wrong.
3. Write the weekday with the date, in words: "Tuesday, November 10", never "11/10", which a European reads as October 11.
4. Give the time in both zones, yours and theirs, so they don't have to convert and you can't both convert in opposite directions.
5. Check daylight saving weeks. In 2026 the US moves its clocks on March 8 and November 1, Europe and the UK on March 29 and October 25. Between those dates, New York is 4 hours behind London instead of 5.
6. Say how long the offer stands ("I'll hold these until Thursday"), so you can give the slots to someone else afterward.

The daylight saving rule catches people every year. On Tuesday, March 3, 2026, 3:00 pm in New York is 8:00 pm in London. A week later, on March 10, the same 3:00 pm is 7:00 pm in London, because the US changed its clocks on March 8 and the UK waits until March 29 (15 U.S.C. § 260a; UK Summer Time Order 2002).

Three formats you can copy

Hi [name],

Here are three times that work for a 30-minute call:

- Tuesday, November 10: 10:00 am New York / 3:00 pm London
- Wednesday, November 11: 11:30 am New York / 4:30 pm London
- Thursday, November 12: 9:00 am New York / 2:00 pm London

Reply with the one you prefer and I'll send a calendar invite. I'll hold these until Monday.

Hi [name],

I'm free for a 45-minute call any time in these windows (times in Mexico City first, then Madrid):

- Monday, November 9: 8:00 to 10:00 am Mexico City / 3:00 to 5:00 pm Madrid
- Thursday, November 12: 8:00 to 10:00 am Mexico City / 3:00 to 5:00 pm Madrid

Pick a start time inside one of them and I'll confirm with an invite.

Hi [name],

The easiest way to find a time is my booking page: [booking link]

It shows my free 30-minute slots in your own time zone for the next two weeks, and you'll get a calendar invite and a reminder the day before. If none of the times work, reply here and I'll find another.

Mistakes that still slip through

• "12:00 am" and "12:00 pm": half your readers mix them up. Write "noon" or "midnight", or use 12:30 pm and avoid the hour.
• "Next Tuesday": said on a Sunday, some people read it as two days away, others as nine. Write the date.
• Crossing the date line: 4:00 pm Tuesday in Los Angeles is 9:00 am Wednesday in Tokyo in November. Write both dates when the day changes.
• Offering slots you'd have to cancel: check your own calendar for the same window before you send, including travel and school runs.
• Replying to an old thread: if the slots are from last week's email, restate them with dates in the new message so nobody books a time that's gone.

After you agree: send an invite, not just a reply

A reply that says "Tuesday works" leaves each person to type the event into their own calendar, and that's where the wrong zone sneaks in. A calendar invite stores the start time together with its time zone (the TZID parameter in the iCalendar standard, RFC 5545), so Google Calendar, Outlook and Apple Calendar each show it in the reader's local time. Create the event in your calendar, add the client as a guest, and check that the zone on the event is the one you meant.

When to send a booking link instead

Cross-zone meetings are now ordinary. Microsoft's June 2025 Work Trend Index special report found that nearly a third of meetings span more than one time zone (Microsoft WorkLab), so a clear format saves a real number of emails. For the regular overlap between common city pairs, see best times to meet clients in other time zones.

In SoloWOS

A SoloWOS booking page detects each visitor's time zone, shows your free times in it, and lets them pick another time zone if they're traveling. Confirmations include links to add the meeting to Google Calendar or to Apple and Outlook (an .ics file), and the reminder 24 hours before repeats the time in the client's zone. You set your weekly hours once in Scheduling > Availability & calendars. Share a booking page clients can schedule from: Basic costs $2/month after a 14-day free trial (card required).