Changing times, September edition

At 2am Sunday, September 27, New Zealand’s clocks jump forward one our for Daylight Saving Time, which is known as “NZ Daylight Time”, or “NZDT“)”. While I hate the twice-a-year clock changes, the NZDT change is the hardest because everything’s suddenly an hour later, and many people say they feel tired for around a week afterward—and by “many people” I mean me.

Good, bad, or indifferent, these time changes are a fact of life, for now, anyway. One thing these time changes need are amusing memes for us to share. I’m being sarcastic, of course, but they are a handy way to remind folks of the impending time change—or, they would be if they were more specific.

One year I shared a time-change meme on Facebook, and an American friend shared it, even though we don’t change our clocks on the same date. I think that underscores the extent to which many (most?) people don’t know when their local clocks change, but I’ve noticed many, many times when people seem to be completely unaware of the time change.

So, this time I took an existing meme and added information specific to New Zealand (at the top of this post) so, I hoped, it was abundantly clear that it was intended for New Zealanders. I may do something like that again for the next New Zealand time change in April.

I don’t mean to suggest I’m wonderful and astute, though I’m clearly both, but I’ve always put the date of the clock changes on my calendars, first on old timey paper calendars, and later on my electronic calendars. My electronic calendar is now shared on all my devices—phone, tablet, desktop computer, laptop, and even my Apple Watch. In other words, I have no excuse for not knowing dates of things—though I only use specific alerts for important things like appointments.

I’ve noted in the past that changing the clocks in my house is much easier than it’s ever been: All those devices I mentioned automatically change the time, and even the clock-radio in my bedroom has a “DST” button to make it easy to add or subtract an hour. Actually, even my car automatically changes the time.

However, all is not perfect: My microwave and oven are completely manual, and so, I never change the time on them. The truth is, I’d never even think of looking at them to find out what time it is, not when I wear a watch and have ample other clocks to look at.

Ah, yes, those clocks: I have four wall clocks that I have to change twice a year. That’s annoying, absolutely, but there’s another aspect: If there was a major network failure of some kind, and all the devices that use the Internet to set their time couldn’t, at least in theory, display the time accurately, my four ordinary battery-powered wall clocks will be just fine. I guess they’re kind of like a chronographic backup system. That doesn’t actually make me like changing those four clocks two times a year, but I might feel differently if all my devices suddenly couldn’t display the correct time.

I actually wish we’d end these twice a year clock changes, and if one day all my clocks changed the time automatically, I certainly wouldn’t object. After all, if there ever was a catastrophic failure capable of prevent devices from displaying the time accurately, maybe it’d just be a good excuse to take some time off.

New Zealand will switch back to New Zealand Standard Time (NZST) at 2am on Sunday, April 6, 2026.