How to Schedule a Meeting Across 3+ Time Zones
Using Tokyo, Berlin, and New York as an example, we walk through finding overlap windows and setting up cross-timezone meetings with tokipick.
The Overlap Problem
Tokyo (JST, UTC+9), Berlin (CET, UTC+1), New York (EST, UTC-5). Try to find a meeting time that falls within everyone's 9-to-6 working hours, and you'll quickly realize how narrow the window is.
Let's do the math. When it's 5:00 PM in Tokyo, it's 9:00 AM in Berlin and 3:00 AM in New York. When it's 9:00 AM in New York, it's 11:00 PM in Tokyo. There is literally no time slot where all three locations are within standard business hours.
The practical solution is accepting that someone will stretch a bit. For example: Tokyo 5:00-6:00 PM / Berlin 9:00-10:00 AM / New York 3:00 AM (early morning). Rotating who takes the inconvenient slot keeps things fair over time.
Setting Up Candidate Times in tokipick
From tokipick's homepage, create a new event. First, select your timezone — choose "Asia/Tokyo" in the timezone selector, and everything you see from that point is displayed in JST.
Next, pick your candidate dates and select time slots on the grid. You can choose between 30-minute and 60-minute slots: 30 minutes for standups, 60 for deeper discussions. The key is not to over-offer — 5 to 8 slots is the sweet spot. Too many options and people take longer to respond.
Before selecting candidate times, mentally check what those times translate to in your participants' timezones. This prevents accidentally offering a 2 AM slot to someone.
What Participants See
Once you create the event, tokipick generates a shareable URL. Send it via Slack, email, or any messenger. No account registration needed.
When participants open the URL, their browser timezone is auto-detected and all candidate times are displayed in their local time. Your Berlin colleague sees "9:00 AM CET" while your New York colleague sees "3:00 AM EST" — each in their own timezone. Participants mark each slot as available, prefer-not, or unavailable and hit submit.
As the organizer, you can check all responses on the management page at a glance. The best time slot is immediately obvious. No email ping-pong, no spreadsheet tallying.
Tips for Recurring Meetings
Once you've found a good time for a recurring meeting, lock it in. Re-coordinating every week is exhausting for everyone. But watch out during DST transition periods (March and October-November) — the US and Europe switch on different dates, causing a 2-3 week window where time differences shift unexpectedly.
When team members change, run a fresh tokipick round to find a time that works for the updated group.
- Send a team reminder before DST transitions
- Verify the meeting time still works for everyone after the switch
- Use tokipick to re-coordinate when members join or leave
- If you rotate the inconvenient slot, keep a record of whose turn it is