Reference

Time zone glossary for meeting planners.

The words that decide whether a meeting lands at 9 AM or 9 PM. Short, plain-English definitions with links to the guides that go deeper.

Updated November 9, 2026 · Reviewed by The Vibing Dev.

UTC (Coordinated Universal Time)

The primary time standard the world uses to coordinate clocks. UTC does not change for daylight saving, so it is the stable reference behind every time zone conversion.

UTC offset

The difference between a local clock and UTC, written as UTC+05:30 or UTC−08:00. An offset is a number; a time zone is a set of rules that produces that number on a given date.

IANA time zone

A named region in the IANA Time Zone Database, such as America/New_York or Asia/Manila. The name carries the full history of offsets and daylight-saving rules for that place.

Daylight saving time (DST)

The seasonal practice of moving clocks forward by one hour in spring and back in autumn. DST dates differ by country, which is why two places can be six hours apart for most of the year and five during a mismatch week.

Golden window

The period when every participant in a meeting is inside their defined working hours at the same time. With two cities it is usually one block; with five or more it may not exist.

Overlap

The shared working time between two or more schedules. The planner shows overlap as a highlighted band on the timeline and as ranked alternative windows.

Bridge slot

A deliberately inconvenient but workable window used when standard working hours do not overlap. One region joins early or stays late so the other can meet during its normal day.

Home zone

The time zone you treat as your reference. Setting a home zone makes the planner show meeting times in that zone first, which reduces conversion mistakes.

Wall-clock time

The time shown on a clock in a particular place, including any DST adjustment. It is not the same as UTC and cannot be converted safely without a zone or offset.

Fixed offset

A zone that never changes for daylight saving, such as UTC+08:00. Singapore, Hong Kong, and Jakarta are examples of places that stay on one offset all year.

Day shift

Whether a converted time falls on the same calendar day, the next day, or the previous day. A 9 PM New York call is already the next morning in Singapore.

.ics (iCalendar file)

A standard calendar file that stores an event in UTC with time zone information. When imported, it renders in the recipient's local time, avoiding manual conversion errors.

DST mismatch week

The days when countries change clocks on different dates. New York and Berlin, for example, are briefly five hours apart instead of six. Recurring meetings can silently drift by an hour.

Recurring-meeting drift

The one-hour shift that happens to a recurring meeting when one participant's country changes clocks before another's. The fix is to store the event in UTC or re-check the invite after each transition.

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