About Time · A proposed satirical political party

The day, reformed

If we were designing this system from scratch today, would we really design it this way? About Time puts that question to the things everyone uses and nobody chose. We begin with two.

10: hours in a day
100: minutes in an hour
13: months in a year
28: days in every month

Black-and-white photograph of the Parliament Buildings in Wellington, with gardens in front. — Parliament Buildings, Wellington, about 1907.

A working day, in decimal time

Nothing about the day moves. Only the numbers change, and they start telling you something: at knock-off, 70.8% of the day has gone.

EventOld clock → decimal

Morning

Alarm 06:302:70

Start work 08:303:54

Morning tea 10:304:37

Afternoon

Lunch 12:005:00

Knock-off 17:007:08

Evening

Dinner 18:307:70

Lights out 22:309:37

Right now ––:–––:––

A whole day10:00, exactly

Founding policies

Decimal Civil Time

Ten hours in a day, a hundred minutes in an hour. The clock tells you how much of the day has gone.

The proposal

10 decimal hours per day
100 decimal minutes per hour, 1,000 per day
Clocks show hours and minutes only
Midnight is 0:00; midday is 5:00
The SI second stays exactly as it is

The case for

The reading is the percentage of the day elapsed: 3:43 means 34.3% has gone.
Durations become decimal arithmetic. No carrying sixties, no am and pm.
Half past five in the morning becomes 2:29. Lunch at 5:00 is exactly halfway through the day.

The case against

A decimal minute is 86.4 seconds, an awkward number for anyone who counts in seconds. A three-minute egg becomes about 2.08 decimal minutes.
Every clock, timetable and contract in the country would need converting, and the rest of the world would carry on as before.
Familiarity has real value. Sixty divides by more numbers than a hundred does.

Not yet decided: How decimal time fits with our daylight saving reform, which would keep clocks unchanged all year and shift agreed working and activity schedules with the seasons instead. The size of that shift is still undecided.

An enamel clock dial numbered 1 to 10, with a small conventional dial set inside it. — Decimal clock face by Pierre Daniel Destigny, Rouen, 1798–1805.

Calendar Reform

Thirteen months of exactly 28 days. Every date falls on the same weekday, every year.

The proposal

13 months of exactly 28 days, four weeks each
364 regular days a year
Then Limbo: one day at the end of the year, with no date, weekday or month
A second Limbo day in leap years

The case for

Every month is the same length, so months can be compared directly.
Your birthday falls on the same weekday every year, as does every public holiday. Unless you were born during Limbo, in which case you shall remain in Limbo.
Every month starts on the same weekday. A calendar printed once would never go out of date.

The case against

The rest of the world would still use the Gregorian calendar, so every international date would need translating.
Limbo sits outside the week, which breaks the continuous seven-day cycle many religious observances depend on.
Thirteen months do not divide into quarters, which business and government reporting rely on.

Not yet decided: The names and order of the months, which will go to a public consultation. How Limbo works for employment and the law.

An engraved print titled Germinal: a woman holding doves beside a potted tree, above a table of sunrise times. — Germinal, a month of the French Republican calendar. Engraving by Tresca after Lafitte.

The Preservation of the Second

“The second will remain exactly as long as it has always been. It has always done good, clean work. We see no reason to interfere with it.”

Official statement of the About Time Party. Decimal time changes how the clock divides the day. The SI second, used for science, sport, computing and every precise measurement, is unchanged.

We’ve done this before.

New Zealand used to count money in pounds, shillings and pence. Twelve pennies to a shilling. Twenty shillings to a pound.

Then we changed it.

New Zealand reforms, before and after
Measure	Before	After	When
Money	12 pence to a shilling, 20 shillings to a pound	100 cents to a dollar	1967
Distance	Inches, feet, yards, chains, furlongs, miles	Millimetres, metres, kilometres	1969–1976
Weight	Ounces, pounds, stone, tons	Grams, kilograms, tonnes	1969–1976
Volume	Fluid ounces, pints, quarts, gallons	Millilitres, litres	1969–1976
Temperature	Fahrenheit	Celsius	1969–1976
Time of day	24 hours of 60 minutes	10 hours of 100 minutes	Not yet

A generation learns a new system. Every generation afterwards inherits the benefits.

Changing the world’s clocks would be far harder than changing one country’s money. We don’t pretend otherwise. The full argument

The year, in thirteen parts

How 2026 would read. Every month is four weeks long and starts on a Monday. Like a deck of cards: 52 weeks in thirteen sets of four, and Limbo is the Joker. Ace to King adds up to 91. Four suits make 364, exactly the number of regular days in the year.

Today is –, or –.

First half

Month 11 Jan – 28 Jan
Month 229 Jan – 25 Feb
Month 326 Feb – 25 Mar
Month 426 Mar – 22 Apr
Month 523 Apr – 20 May
Month 621 May – 17 Jun

Second half

Month 718 Jun – 15 Jul
Month 816 Jul – 12 Aug
Month 913 Aug – 9 Sept
Month 1010 Sept – 7 Oct
Month 118 Oct – 4 Nov
Month 125 Nov – 2 Dec
Month 133 Dec – 30 Dec

Then, Limbo

Limbo31 Dec
In leap yearstwo days, next in 2028

What day is it? It isn’t.

You may celebrate, rest, travel, do nothing, or decline invitations without explanation. Businesses may open or close. The legal and employment arrangements are still being worked out.

The months need names

The names and order of the months will go to public consultation. Three approaches are on the table.

A. Familiar. Keep January to December in the usual order and add a thirteenth month at the beginning or the end.
B. Restored. Rearrange the months so September, October, November and December are once again the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th, and add a new month.
C. New. Create entirely new names, or a mixture of old and new.

Germinal is the provisional name for the new month. It comes from the French Republican Calendar, where it was the seventh month. Nothing is decided and no votes are being collected yet.

Limbo has no date, no weekday and no month. Month names are placeholders until a public consultation decides them. The difficulty is real too. Days outside the week interrupt the continuous seven-day cycle, which many people organise their lives and faiths around.

The Daylight Question

The sun is not required to change its schedule. Why are we?

The sun has maintained a remarkably consistent approach to daylight. The About Time Party sees no compelling reason to involve it in administrative arrangements.

Why do we change our clocks when what we really want to change is how we use daylight? All three options below end seasonal clock changes.

Option A: Abolish daylight saving. Civil time stays fixed all year, and so do working hours. No clock changes and no coordinated schedule changes.
Option B: Seasonal schedules. Clocks stay the same, but agreed working hours move earlier in summer: 9am–5pm in winter, 8am–4pm in summer. The effect of daylight saving, without touching the clock.
Option C: A permanently earlier day. When decimal time arrives, the standard working day moves earlier for good: 8am–4pm all year, winter included. More daylight after work, less before it.

Working hours: 9am–5pm
Daylight before work: 1 h 15 min (0.52 decimal h)
Daylight after work: none (0.00 decimal h)

Civil time stays fixed all year, and so do working hours. No clock changes and no coordinated schedule changes.

Daylight (illustrative) Working hours. Times are conventional standard time, roughly those of a central New Zealand city at midwinter and midsummer. The clock itself never changes.

None of these creates more daylight. They change how working and leisure hours sit against the solar day.
Earlier schedules can mean darker mornings. The effects differ by season, place and working arrangement.
Times are illustrative, in conventional standard time. One conventional hour is about 0.4167 decimal hours.
The size of the shift, whether it would be voluntary or required, and how it would work are all undecided. The party has not chosen an option.

About Time is a proposal, not yet a party. If you think these questions are worth asking, we would like to hear from you.

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