If you're like me (or perhaps you just want to be more like me) and your daily work spans time zones you know how difficult that can be. My work day typically starts 3 hours before my co-workers out on the west coast. Same goes for the end of the work day - I try to end my day job around 6:30p.m. (EST) or so. But that's the middle of the afternoon for Phil, Jon, Micah, and the rest of the gang out in the PST.

It really gets sticky when we're scheduling meetings and other important events. Often I'll be one a phone call with someone from out west and they'll say something like

Can you be on a conference call [some day] at noon?

Sure! I say... thinking I'll eat lunch while listening in on the call. And then later I realize I have a scheduling conflict (or am late for the meeting, etc...) because I was thinking noon my time, not noon their time.

It's not so bad though, we're all smart folks and we can figure out how to add and subtract. But you know what... I'm tired of having to be smart all the time. So what can I do about it?

Windows Vista Sidebar

If you're running Windows Vista you've probably noticed the new Sidebar and all of the cool Gadgets that you can put on it. The gadgets run the gamut from the truly useful (calendar, weather, sticky notes...) to the truly trivial (slide show, puzzles...).

Well here is another gadget you can chalk up as truly useful: Digital World Clock.

You can add multiple instances of this gadget to your Sidebar (or just float them out on your desktop if you wish) and set each instance to a different time zone with a different Clock name. I have two instances of the clock on my Sidebar, one for EST and one for PST. I've given them Clock names of Columbus and West Coast, respectively.

There are some other options you can configure on a per clock basis - like wether or not to show the seconds, enable scrolling of the Clock name, etc... All of the configuration options are available from the standard Sidebar Gadget configuration screens.

What about the Taskbar clock?

Yes, I realize that new with Windows Vista you can add up to three (3) different clocks to the built in Taskbar clock (the one that shows up in the right-hand corner of your Taskbar). However, I don't like having to mouse down to the taskbar, and double click on the time to see the extra clocks.

The information presented by the Digital World Clock is the type of info that I want available to me at all times... or at least as close as a few key strokes*.

Anyhow, I hope this little tip helps those of you whom also have to deal with multiple time zones on a daily basis. Oh, and if you're looking for more gadgets or information about how they work, be sure to check out the Gadget Gallery and MicrosoftGadgets.

* - You can cycle through the gadgets on your sidebar using the Windows + G keyboard shortcut.