For most Americans, last night meant "falling back" and picking up an extra hour of sleep.

That is, unless you live in Arizona or Hawaii. Or, in other lands, including a slice of Canada. Or parts of South America, Australia and all of Asia.

Daylight Saving Time ended this morning, Nov. 3, shifting the clock so that we lose another hour of evening daylight. The twice-a-year time change is not popular with some and efforts to do away "spring forward and fall back" have been around for years. But economist Allison Schrager takes things a step further. In a Nov. 1 article for Quartz, Schrager recommends not just doing away with Daylight Saving Time but also consolidating U.S. time zones into just two divisions.

As for daylight saved, Schrager said the energy savings touted by proponents of the switch is minimal at best. The frequent and uncoordinated time changes - different countries move their clocks on different days - cause confusion and loss of money. She said the differences between U.S. and European time schedules cost the airlines $147 million a year in time disruptions.

"It would seem to be more efficient to do away with the practice altogether," Schrager wrote.

She then proposes a more radical idea.

Schrager said Americans on Eastern Standard Time should set their clocks back one hour, like normal. Americans on Central and Rocky Mountain Time should do nothing and Americans on Pacific Time should set their clocks forward one hour. After that one-time event, no more moving of the clocks.

"This will result in just two time zones for the continental United States. The east and west coasts will only be one hour apart. Anyone who lives on one coast and does business with the other can imagine the uncountable benefits of living in a two-time-zone nation (excluding Alaska and Hawaii)," Schrager wrote.

The consolidation isn't unprecedented, she writes. Before 1883, different cities had their own standards and there were more than 300 different time zones. Railroads used 100 times zones before they were consolidated to four.

With only a one-hour time difference, business and travel would be made easier, she writes.

"Frequent travel between the coasts causes jet lag, robbing employees of productive work time. With a one-hour time difference, bicoastal travel would become almost effortless," she said.

"Time is already arbitrary, why not make it work in our favor?" she asks.

You can read the rest of Schrager's suggestions here:

Here are some more thoughts on daylight saving time

Time

National Geographic

Outside the Beltway