How to show multiple time zones in Outlook
A quick guide to displaying two or three time zones in Outlook's calendar, plus practical advice for not screwing up recurring meetings across regions. —
Outlook lets you show up to three time zones in your calendar. Most people don't know this, and the ones who do usually forget where the setting lives. Here's the setup, plus a few habits that'll stop you booking someone into a 2am call.
Turning on extra time zones
In classic Outlook for Windows, go to File → Options → Calendar, scroll to Time zones, and tick "Show a second time zone." You can add a third too. Name them something useful like "Auckland," "NYC," or "Berlin." Avoid abbreviations like EST or CET, which collide and confuse.
On Mac, it's Outlook → Settings → Calendar → Time zones.
In new Outlook or the web version, click the gear, go to Calendar, and look for Time zones there.
Once enabled, you'll see parallel columns in your calendar view. That alone saves a surprising amount of mental math.
Recurring meetings and DST drift
Here's where things go wrong: you set up a weekly standup, and twice a year someone shows up an hour late because clocks changed somewhere.
The fix is deciding upfront what the meeting is anchored to. If it's "10am my time every Tuesday," anchor it to your city and let everyone else adjust when DST hits. If it's "whatever lands in overlap," write that down and expect the local time to shift.
Either way, put the rule in the calendar description. Something like: "Anchored to London time year-round. Check the board link if DST changed for you." Future-you and your teammates will thank you.
One trick that pays off: create a recurring annual reminder a few days before each DST switch (early March and early November for the US, late March and late October for Europe). Title it something like "DST changes Sunday, check recurring meetings." Five minutes of review beats a week of missed calls.
Scheduling Assistant lies (by omission)
Scheduling Assistant shows free/busy. It doesn't show "reasonable." A 7am free slot is still a 7am slot.
If you're booking across time zones, don't just find the first open gap. Find the overlap window your team actually agreed on, and stick to it. If you have to go outside that window, rotate who takes the bad hour. Fairness compounds.
For external guests or cross-org meetings, remember you might only see partial availability. In those cases, share an overlap board first and confirm the window before you send the invite.
A description template worth stealing
This series follows: [City] If DST moved your clocks, double-check: [link to overlap board] Agenda - ...
Short, clear, prevents the "wait, is this an hour earlier now?" Slack messages.
When the calendar isn't enough
Outlook is good at invites. It's not good at showing who can meet when across a distributed team. If you coordinate with the same people every week, a shared overlap board makes scheduling a non-event. That's what Timezoners does: a live view of your team's overlap you can link from Slack or your wiki, and forget about until someone travels or moves.
Set up the time zones in Outlook for your own sanity. Use a shared board for the team's sanity.