Question from Glenda: My son accepted a job in Brisbane, Australia and he now lives there.
My problem is I seem to wake him up every time I call him. I guess I’m horrible with time zones.
Is there an easy way to quickly see what time it is over there so I can avoid disturbing him when he’s sleeping? Maybe an app I an install on my computer?
If it matters, I use a Dell laptop with Windows 10.
Rick’s answer: Hi, Glenda. There are actually several ways to quickly see what time it is in most any city or town in the world (in your case, Brisbane).
The low-tech way would be to buy an extra clock and keep it set to Brisbane time. You could even label that clock somehow with the word Brisbane if you want.
If you’d rather do it the “high-tech” way, you have a couple of options…
First, you can add a second time zone for Brisbane to the clock on your PC. Here’s how:
Note: The instructions below are for Windows 10, but they also work for Windows 11 (the steps vary just slightly, but not enough to matter).
1 – Right-click on the time display in the lower right-hand corner of your screen, then click Adjust date/time.
2 – Click the Add clocks for different time zones link.
3 – Select the Additional Clocks tab.
5 – Check the box beside Show this clock.
6 – Select the time zone for Brisbane from the drop-down menu. Note: It will be labeled (UTC+10:00) Brisbane.
7 – Click Apply, then click OK.
Now whenever you want to quickly see what time it is in Brisbane, all you have to do is click the time display on your laptop and you’ll see both your local time and Brisbane time.
There’s also a second high-tech method (described here) that doesn’t involve changing any settings. Just follow the steps below:
Note: This method will work on both your laptop and your phone.
1 – Load Google.com into your web browser.
2 – Type time brisbane into the Google search box and press the Enter key. Google will respond by displaying the current Brisbane time.
Note: If Google is set as your default search engine you can simply type time brisbane directly into the address bar without loading the Google website first.
There you go Glenda. I hope this helps.
Update from Glenda: I added the Brisbane time zone to my laptop’s clock and it works great. My son and I thank you so much!
Bonus tip: This post explains how to use Google to quickly get the current weather conditions for any town, city or zip code.
Image courtesy of Odan Jaeger.