The Async-First Quarterly Planning Playbook for Distributed Teams
The classic two-day planning offsite is broken when half your team is asleep. Here is a two-week, async-first cadence that produces better OKRs without 18 hours of Zoom. -
Your window to reach both cities is 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM in Istanbul, which converts to 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM in Sydney. Sydney is 7 hours ahead of Istanbul, leaving about 3 hours of shared hours — plan recurring calls early in that window to leave buffer. The difference isn't constant year-round: Sydney adjusts for daylight saving while Istanbul holds steady. To edit hours, add more timezones, and share with your team, create a free collaborative board.
| UTC (GMT+0) | 12am | 1am | 2am | 3am | 4am | 5am | 6am | 7am | 8am | 9am | 10am | 11am | 12pm | 1pm | 2pm | 3pm | 4pm | 5pm | 6pm | 7pm | 8pm | 9pm | 10pm | 11pm | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Istanbul Europe/Istanbul | 3am | 4am | 5am | 6am | 7am | 8am | 9am | 10am | 11am | 12pm | 1pm | 2pm | 3pm | 4pm | 5pm | 6pm | 7pm | 8pm | 9pm | 10pm | 11pm | Next Day 12am | 1am | 2am | |
| Sydney Australia/Sydney | 10am | 11am | 12pm | 1pm | 2pm | 3pm | 4pm | 5pm | 6pm | 7pm | 8pm | 9pm | 10pm | 11pm | Next Day 12am | 1am | 2am | 3am | 4am | 5am | 6am | 7am | 8am | 9am |
The classic two-day planning offsite is broken when half your team is asleep. Here is a two-week, async-first cadence that produces better OKRs without 18 hours of Zoom. -
If your 1:1 keeps getting moved, cancelled, or wedged into someone's evening, you have a structural problem, not a calendar problem. Here is how to run 1:1s that actually build trust across time zones. -
Candidates ghost, panelists double-book, and the fairest hires never get scheduled. A practical guide to running global interview loops that close strong candidates without burning out your panel. -