SURVEY SAYS: When WIll You "Fall Back"?

But for the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (which extended Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. beginning in 2007 – see Time for a Change? ), most U.S. clocks would have been changed (not all areas of the U.S. observe DST).   In fact, I’ve been fighting my blackberry for the correct time for a week, and my DVD apparently hasn’t gotten the message, either.   As it is, those of us who DO will switch our clocks back this weekend.   This week, I asked readers when they would set their clocks back.

Apparently most of us ( 57.5% ) will make the change on Saturday night before turning in (one reader noted, “…are you kidding with the Sunday at 2:00a.m., I haven’t seen that since I was single and without kids. I’m lucky if I make the 10:00 p.m. news “), and 13.5% will do so on Sunday morning.   Another 5% will be attending to things “sometime Sunday”, and half that number will be doing so on Sunday morning – but before going to bed.  

“Other” was a more popular than usual category this week – garnering a full one-in-five responses – and the source of this week’s special verbatims:

Some people have a special “system”:  

“Saturday morning so I have an extra day to get on the right schedule instead of paying the price Monday morning.”

“Saturday early afternoon as I like to go to bed and get up with the actual time.”

Several were “combating” technology:

“All of the alarm clocks in the house are designed to switch automatically via satellite. I thought this would be a good idea because I would never need to change the time again. Unfortunately, nobody told the satellite DST was extended, and they all changed last weekend. They have been wrong all week.”

“Saturday morning — I’m going out of town for a trip and will be in a hotel at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday morning. As an aside, my three [pre-2007] automatic-time-adjustment clocks were all wrong, and “fell back” a week early. Apparently they didn’t get a copy of the legislation.”

“Well, we have a couple of clocks that purport to set themselves. Unfortunately, they were programmed BEFORE DST changed. So the clock by my side of the bed “fell back” last weekend and had to be reset. Plus, I now have to make sure all of my global calls are set to the right time because my team in India isn’t on any sort of DST, and back in the spring, we were off by one hour for several weeks. It’s not nice for those folks who already stay late (their time) to have a call with us on our morning. Outside of those clocks that set “automatically” (and then have to be reset), we’ll do the clocks Sunday sometime. Note that there is one clock that we never got around to changing in the spring, so it will be just dandy on Sunday morning.”

“Some of the above. Part of our house is already observing Standard Time, other parts will be when we wake up Sunday morning and others are holding out a little longer, possibly until Monday. Our antique (that means old, not valuable) mantel clock will be on the same time I am, whatever that happens to be, since I am allowed to control that one manually.”

“I will set clocks back on Saturday night, except for the cable box which changed on its own last weekend, so my den is on Central time this week.”

For some, the “other” answer was “never”:

“Never. I stopped resetting my clock forward and back few years ago. I simply leave all the clocks on DST. I just got used to it and I know to properly deduct one hour.”

For others the “other” answer was “ongoing”:

“I’ll set my wristwatch and my bedside alarm clock when I go to bed Saturday night and all other clocks, timers, etc. on Sunday….all day.”

Family was a “factor”:

“My husband changes “his” clocks (2) Saturday evening. I change the rest of the clocks (7) on Sunday morning.”

“I will set the clocks back Saturday night before I go to sleep. BC (before children), I would celebrate DST with an extra hour of parting and/or sleep. However, since my three kids internal clocks have no concept of DST, or my desire to squeeze an extra hour of sleep into an already sleep deprived week, I will go to bed knowing full well, that those little minions WILL still be waking me up at the crack of dawn, regardless of what the clock reads!”

But this week’s Editor’s Choice comes all the way from Hawaii  ” Aloha Nevin, I realize this is too late for your survey today regarding when everyone will change their clocks, but I did have to add my 20 cents.   While we don’t recognize daylight savings time, our challenge is trying to remember what time it is in the rest of the world because yes, we do live on an island.”

Thanks to everyone who participated in our survey!