You’re in New York drinking your morning coffee.
Your Filipino VA is getting ready for bed.
You’re in Los Angeles wrapping up lunch. Your team in Manila is just waking up.
This is the reality of working across 12 to 16 hours of time difference. Thousands of US companies deal with this every single day.
Get the overlap wrong, and you burn out your team or miss critical collaboration windows. Get it right, and you unlock genuine 24-hour productivity without anyone working crazy hours.
Let me show you how.
The time zone math you need to know
The Philippines operates on Philippine Standard Time (GMT+8) year-round. No daylight saving adjustment.
This means your overlap windows shift twice a year when American clocks change.
Eastern Time (New York, Miami)
Daylight saving (March to November): 12 hours ahead
Standard time: 13 hours ahead
Example: 9 AM Monday in New York = 9 PM Monday in Manila
Central Time (Chicago, Dallas)
Daylight saving: 13 hours ahead
Standard time: 14 hours ahead
Mountain Time (Denver, Phoenix)
Daylight saving: 14 hours ahead
Standard time: 15 hours ahead
Pacific Time (Los Angeles, Seattle)
Daylight saving: 15 hours ahead
Standard time: 16 hours ahead
Your afternoon meetings fall during your Filipino team’s evening hours. Your morning standup happens at the end of their calendar day.
It takes some getting used to.
How much overlap do you actually need
Research across distributed teams shows 2 to 4 hours of daily overlap is optimal.
Less than that creates constant delays waiting for responses. More than that means someone’s working unreasonable hours.
You don’t need 8 hours of overlap. You really don’t.
Finding the best meeting times for your time zone
Best overlap hours for Eastern Time and Philippine teams
Early morning overlap: 7 AM to 9 AM ET = 7 PM to 9 PM Manila
Late afternoon overlap: 5 PM to 8 PM ET = 5 AM to 8 AM Manila (next day)
Most Eastern time companies use the evening Manila window for daily standups, client syncs, and real-time collaboration.
It’s reasonable hours for both sides.
Best overlap hours for Central Time and Philippine teams
Morning window: 6 AM to 8 AM CT = 7 PM to 9 PM Manila
Afternoon window: 3 PM to 7 PM CT = 4 AM to 8 AM Manila (next day)
Central time offers slightly better overlap than Eastern. The 6 AM to 8 AM window works well for teams willing to start early.
Best overlap hours for Mountain and Pacific Time and Philippine teams
The further west you go, the harder overlap becomes.
Pacific time companies face a difficult choice: extremely early US mornings (4 AM to 6 AM) or asking Filipino team members to work past midnight.
West Coast teams typically solve this by:
Using late US afternoon (1 PM to 3 PM PT = 4 AM to 6 AM Manila) for essential meetings only
Building heavily asynchronous workflows
Recording meetings for async review
Rotating who takes difficult hours weekly or monthly
If you’re on the West Coast, you need to get really good at async work. There’s no way around it.
How to write clear time zone expectations
Vague scheduling expectations create conflict. Specific contract language prevents it.
Define synchronous hours explicitly
Instead of “must be available during US business hours,” write “available for real-time communication between 8 PM and 10 PM Manila time, Monday through Friday.”
See the difference?
One is vague and opens you up to employee misclassification. The other is specific and maintains contractor autonomy.
Specify how other work hours are determined
Make it clear that outside the agreed overlap window, the contractor controls their schedule and determines when they complete deliverables.
This protects both of you.
Address daylight saving time directly
Include language like “overlap windows shift by one hour when US observes daylight saving time changes in March and November.”
Otherwise, you’ll have confusion twice a year about when meetings actually start.
Set communication expectations
Define response time expectations for different channels.
Slack within 2 hours during overlap. Email within 24 hours. That kind of thing.
Don’t leave this to assumption.
Building workflows that work asynchronously
Teams that succeed across 12+ hour gaps architect work to happen asynchronously by default.
Save real-time overlap for things that genuinely need it.
Structure 24 hour work cycles with daily handoffs
Your US team wraps up by documenting progress, blockers, and next steps.
Your Filipino team starts their day by reviewing that documentation, making progress, and handing back detailed status updates before your morning starts.
Daily standup collection makes this handoff process systematic.
Your team submits what they accomplished, what they’re working on, and any blockers.
You review it with your morning coffee instead of scheduling a meeting.
Done well, you get continuous progress without anyone working overnight.
Done poorly, you get information gaps and duplicated effort.
Use the right tools for async communication
Project management platforms like Asana, ClickUp, and Trello let you see progress without asking.
Loom or Vidyard let team members record updates instead of scheduling calls.
Shared documentation in Notion or Confluence creates a single source of truth accessible anytime.
The goal is making information available, not making people available.
There’s a big difference.
What actually needs to happen during overlap hours
Reserve synchronous time for:
Strategic decisions that need real-time discussion
Complex problem-solving that benefits from back-and-forth
Client meetings that require both US and Philippine team presence
Weekly planning and retrospectives
Relationship-building conversations
Everything else should happen asynchronously.
If you’re scheduling daily meetings just to “check in,” you’re wasting everyone’s time.
Handling daylight saving time changes
Twice a year, your overlap window shifts by an hour.
This creates confusion about meeting times and availability expectations if not managed properly.
Add a clause to your team handbook or contract template: “When the United States transitions to or from daylight saving time, overlap hours shift by one hour. All team members will be notified one week in advance with updated meeting times.”
Use calendar tools that automatically adjust for both time zones. Google Calendar and Outlook handle this well when events are set up correctly with time zones specified.
Consider a brief transition period (3 to 5 days) where you maintain slightly more flexible availability while everyone adjusts.
It’s just easier that way.
Preventing burnout across major time zones
There’s a meaningful difference between working until 10 PM or 11 PM Manila time (late evening) and working past midnight into 2 AM or 3 AM (night shift).
The former is sustainable for many people. The latter is not, except for short periods or with significant compensation.
If your overlap requires Filipino team members to regularly work past midnight, you should:
Pay premium rates that reflect the difficulty
Rotate who covers those hours if possible
Build in recovery time or adjusted schedules on other days
Be transparent that this is a requirement during hiring
Don’t pretend working until 2 AM is normal or sustainable.
Warning signs of burnout in remote teams
Even reasonable overlap hours become problematic when paired with unrealistic workload expectations.
If someone is expected to be available from 8 PM to 11 PM Manila time and deliver a full day’s worth of work outside those hours, something has to give.
Monitor actual working hours, not just contracted hours. Pay attention to when messages are sent and received.
If you’re getting Slack messages at 2 AM Manila time regularly, that’s a red flag.
Build in lighter weeks after high-intensity periods. If you just pushed hard for a product launch with extra synchronous meetings, give the team space to recover.
This isn’t complicated. It’s just being a decent human.
Setting up time zone management for your team
Here’s how to actually implement this stuff.
Map your actual collaboration needs
Look at your last month of meetings. Identify which truly needed real-time participation versus which could have been async updates.
You’ll probably find that half your meetings didn’t need to happen.
Survey your team on preferences
Some people are natural night owls and don’t mind 10 PM meetings. Others strongly prefer morning hours.
Build your schedule around actual preferences where possible.
Don’t assume everyone wants the same thing.
Document everything in a team handbook
Include time zone basics, overlap windows, meeting scheduling norms, async communication expectations, and daylight saving transition procedures.
Write it down once. Reference it forever.
Making time zones work for you
When you get it right, time zones become an advantage.
Work flows continuously. Different perspectives and working styles complement each other. Your team builds genuine 24-hour productivity without anyone sacrificing sleep or personal time.
The key is treating time zone management as an ongoing practice, not a one-time setup.
Keep communicating. Keep iterating. Keep putting sustainability ahead of short-term convenience.
Your team will thank you for it.