How the planner works
Pick where each of you is, when you usually get up and go to sleep, and your working hours if you have set ones. The planner goes through today half an hour at a time and marks when you are both awake and free, shown in both of your local times. It does this twice: once for work days, and once for days off, when only sleep gets in the way.
It uses your browser's own time-zone data for today's date, so daylight saving is already taken into account. When the clocks change in either country, the overlap can move by an hour, so check again then. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is sent to us.
Making the overlap work
- Protect one regular call. A call you can both count on, same time each week, does more than many calls squeezed in when you can. Put it in both calendars.
- Share the awkward hours. If one of you always stays up late or gets up early, it builds resentment. Swap who shifts, week by week.
- Fill the gaps without a call. Voice notes, photos of your day and a running message thread keep you in each other's lives when you cannot talk live.
- Do something side by side. Watch the same film at the same time, cook the same recipe, or play a game. Doing beats talking about doing.
- Keep a countdown. Knowing when you will next be together turns the distance into a stretch of time with an end, which makes it easier to carry.
When the time difference is large
With eight or more hours between you, there may be no time when you are both free on a work day. That is common, not a sign that it cannot work. Most couples in that position settle on short check-ins at the edges of the day, morning for one and evening for the other, plus one longer call at the weekend.
If you speak different first languages as well, the bilingual couples phrasebook has the phrases that matter most, in both. The weekly check-in works well over a call too.