🌇 How I Got Two More Hours of Daylight for Free
It’s wintertime in Berlin, and besides the annoying cold outside, the other big minus of this season is its short days: The sun starts going down around 4 pm. But with a little trick, I extended it to 6 pm! Here is how.
The Setup
I’ve set all my clocks to Moscow time. Moscow’s time zone is UTC+3, which is two hours ahead of Berlin’s time zone (in winter): UTC+1. So when it’s 8 a.m. in Berlin, it is 10 a.m. in Moscow; when it’s midnight in Berlin, it is 2 a.m. in Moscow.
Advantages
By using Moscow time in Berlin, life becomes much more convenient:
- My local supermarket is now open until midnight; another, farther one is even open until 2 a.m.
- The S-Bahn operates (on weekdays) until 3 a.m..
- Doctor and dentist appointments can be made until 8 or even 9 p.m.
- Many phone support hotlines are available until late as well.
- Bürgeramt appointments are available until 8 p.m.
- At lunchtime, my favorite restaurant still offers the full lunch menu when I arrive.
- If I had a regular 9-to-5 job, I’d probably be amazed that it only starts at 11 a.m. and that I am getting so much more sleep. Thanks, boss!
- And of course: The sun sets no earlier than 6 p.m. It feels like spring already!
Perhaps switching to Moscow time would be extraordinarily easy if you are actually from Moscow: No mix-ups in Skype call dates, as all your friends and family are still in the same time zone—you just get to brag about how much more daylight there is in Berlin!
The only negative aspect is that at parties on the weekend, people often wonder why I’m already leaving so early. (“But it’s only 2 a.m.!”)
But what’s also nice is that your computer easily adapts: If you set Moscow as its time zone, Facebook will display events with the time zone added (e.g., 7 p.m. UTC+1), which is a helpful reminder that the world around you still runs on a different clock. The same goes for Google Calendar. But even if you forget about it, at worst, you’ll be early for appointments, not late.
Seriously
“Now, seriously, is this a joke?” you might ask. And I answer: kind of, kind of not.
Here’s the thing: if you’re actually missing daylight in winter but often sleep in the morning when it’s already light, then you’re apparently acting ineffectively.
You could try changing your habits by “getting up earlier,” “eating earlier,” and “not staying up so late at night.” However, this requires constant reminders and a lot of willpower.
But I’m lazy: I don’t want to adjust all my habits and triggers just because the season changes.
This is where the Moscow time approach comes in: I simply keep doing what I do and leave all my triggers and habits in place.
- Looking at my clock at 10 a.m. tells me: Oh, that’s late, I should get up.
- Seeing “2 p.m.” makes me think of lunch.
- “7 p.m.”: I should go home and have dinner.
- “Midnight / 1 a.m.”: Really late already, should go to bed.
So all my current triggers keep working as they did; no adjustment, no willpower needed. And I get two hours more of sun for free. Easy, isn’t it?
So when the semi-annual switch to and from Daylight Saving Time occurs, I will go the other way around: In March, when DST begins, I will switch back from Moscow time to actual Berlin (DST) time (as there is plenty of daylight in summer). But in October, when DST ends, I will set my clock forward to DST on steroids, aka Moscow time. Because seriously: Who needs a time zone with a sunset at 4 p.m.?
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