When traveling from the West Coast to the East Coast, or Los Angeles to New York, it's easy to forget to change your watch to the local time -- especially if it's a short stay. It's not so funny, however, if you miss an important business meeting.

Converting your watch from Pacific Standard Time or Pacific Daylight Time (PST/PDT) to Eastern Standard Time or Eastern Daylight Time (EST/EDT) should be high on your to-do list when arriving in a new city. The Eastern Time zone covers all or part of 22 states from Maine down to Florida, including some Midwestern states. The Pacific Time zone covers all or part of five states from Washington to California.

Note the current PST time.. For example, it may be 3 p.m. Pacific Time when you land on the East coast.

Add three hours to the Pacific Time to convert PST to the EST time zone. So 3 p.m. would now become 6 p.m. in the Eastern Time zone.

Take into consideration if it's Daylight Savings Time differences and areas that do not participate in daylight savings throughout North America. Most of the United States and Canada start DST at 2 a.m. on the second Sunday in March until 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of November based on the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

To convert from Pacific time to other time zones (GMT, CDT, MDT, CEST, AEST, BST, and more) it can be useful to use the coordinated universal time (UTC) or a time zone converter. Time zone conversions can be done easily with the UTC, also known as the Greenwich mean time.

In UTS, every time zone is assigned a positive or negative value from longitudinal zero, basic math will explain the time change from mountain standard time (MST) to central standard time (CST) to Atlantic daylight time (ADT). Knowing how to use the UTC means not needing to know what a time zone is called, to find what time it is in Panama, just look at the time zones map and do simple math.

Tip

Don’t forget to change back to Pacific Time when you go home.

Warning

Parts of Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida are in both Central Time and Eastern Time. Parts of Oregon and Idaho are in both Pacific Time and Mountain Time.

You may experience jet lag when traveling cross-country. Ways to help prevent against the sleep disorder includes getting rest before you leave, staying hydrated during and after your flight and guarding against light exposure, according to the Mayo Clinic.