According to a national survey conducted in the Spring of 2010 by Rasmussen Reports, 83% of people knew when to move their clocks, while 27% showed up an hour early or late at least once in their lives.

Here’s hoping you showed up right on time today. The only confusion I encountered this morning was thinking I got to my car an hour early, then I realized the clock in my car didn’t automatically update.

This year, Daylight Saving Time began at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 9^th and it will end at 2 a.m. on November 2^nd. So the clocks skipped ahead one hour. On the downside, we lost an hour of sleep, but on the bright side, we get more time in the sunshine.

Have you ever wondered where the practice of observing Daylight Saving Time came from? Let’s take a quick look back.

It is said that Ben Franklin was the first person to come up with the concept of Daylight Saving Time. It all began when Franklin, acting as U.S. ambassador to France at the time, awoke in Paris at 6 a.m. and noticed that the sun was up before him. Upon this realization, Franklin thought that if everyone arose with the sun, natural resources could be saved over the long haul.

While Franklin may have had the DST idea first, it was actually Germany who first implemented the time changes. This was during World War I and it was implemented solely to save coal during the war. The practice of changing the time on our clocks twice a year hit the U.S. in 1918. Though not mandatory, a federal law was put into place that established the start and end of DST during the year.

If you work in a facility that has hundreds or even thousands of clocks, your morning could be filled with updating all those clocks to the correct time. Sapling recognized this need and with the implementation of our synchronized clock systems our clocks will automatically update for Daylight Saving Time (where observed).

This feature can potentially save the time and effort it takes to update all the clocks within a facility by hand. You can take that saved time and put it towards other projects and tasks that need your attention. To learn more about how a Sapling clock system can help during DST, please don’t hesitate to contact us!