I Switched to UTC and Never Looked Back

Summary

Why I Switched to UTC and Never Looked Back Photo by @minkus, UnsplashTime zones can turn a simple meeting into a mental puzzle, especially for travelers or remote workers juggling global schedules. Five years ago, Adam Arutyunov, a programmer at Timestripe, ditched local time for Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) across all his devices. His experiment, born from frustration with inconsistent time zones, offers a surprisingly simple way to streamline time management. Here’s Adam’s story of how living by UTC transformed his productivity, and why it might work for you, too.My Five-Year Experiment with UTCBy Adam Arutyunov, Timestripe ProgrammerLast Friday marked five years since I set all my devices to Coordinated Universal Time, UTC. It started with my passion for virtual aviation, where, like real aviation, everything runs on UTC to avoid confusion as planes cross time zones. As a programmer, I’ve always been annoyed by the concept of administrative time zones. They’re often set arbitrarily, for instance, there’s just a one-hour difference between Santiago de Compostela and Vorkuta, despite their vast distance. China, spanning at least three longitudinal zones, uses a single time zone. It’s messy.Five years ago, I decided time zones should be abolished, and everyone should use one coordinated time. Why care if the sun rises at 8 or 21? I began with myself, setting all my devices to UTC. To my surprise, it was easy and intuitive to live this way. At first, my brain automatically converted UTC to Moscow time, my local context. But after a couple of weeks, something shifted.It’s hard to explain, but I’ll try. Time isn’t just numbers on a clock, it’s tied to a context, the time zone you’re referencing. When I see “15:00” on my device, it’s in the context of “my time, UTC.” If I see “18:00” on someone’s screen, it’s “Moscow time.” In my head, these are equivalent, like two labels for the same moment. There’s no mental conversion, no extra cognitive load. When I check the ...