What I mean to ask is that how did people coordinate day to day activities without a universal date and time system? And how did the current date and time system get implemented universally?
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Before calendars and basic timekeeping people did their best to guess when they should plant, travel and perform other task based on the seasons. An old wise person that just knew what marked the start of spring and could predict what would be blooming and where could be vital to a group’s survival.
Sumerians developed the first calendar, numbering days, about 5000 years ago. Despite being imperfect it was an important development and made it easier for people to mark seasons and the past, and make predictions for the future. It also was very useful for people to make legal agreements about things that might be delivered, and when.
Before the 20th century and the near universal adoption of the Gregorian calendar many calendars were used, often creating confusion. Even today getting everyone to agree on time is quite a challenge. Even now the ITU (whom define UTC) are working with the General Conference on Weights and Measures to attempt to come up with a Coordinated Universal Time that eliminates leap seconds.
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