City-pair guide
Planning a meeting between London and Sydney
London and Sydney are a useful test of whether a meeting plan is fair: the cities are far apart, their daylight-saving seasons differ, and there is no hour that is comfortable for both people every day of the year.
Start with the overlap, not the conversion
A conversion tells you the clock reading at one moment. A useful meeting plan starts with boundaries: when does the London participant start and finish work, when is Sydney awake, and who carries the early-morning or evening cost? For many teams, a London morning means a Sydney evening. That can work, but it should be an explicit choice rather than an accidental default.
Why the gap does not stay put
The two cities do not change clocks on the same dates, and their seasons are reversed. The difference therefore passes through short transition windows as well as its usual seasonal gaps. A weekly meeting that feels fine in one month can move by an hour for the other person a few weeks later. Use the London–Sydney time-difference pageto see the current gap and the dates it changes.
Make the compromise visible
Put both local times in the meeting title or description for the first few occurrences, for example: “09:00 London / evening Sydney”. If the call repeats, agree whether the London hour remains fixed or whether the difficult slot rotates. A quarterly rotation can be kinder than asking the same person to take every early or late call.
Check a scenario before sending the invite
Open the meeting planner, add London and Sydney, set realistic working hours and choose a date near the next clock change. The planner makes the trade-off visible and produces a shareable link, so the people affected can see the same proposal before it becomes a standing meeting.