# Using Intervals To Offset Time Postgres Intervals can be used with time as a way of determining a standard offset. For instance, I can concisely determine what the time was 2 hours earlier with ```sql > select now() - '2 hours'::interval as earlier; earlier ------------------------------- 2015-06-12 21:17:43.678822-05 ``` or similarly ```sql > select now() - interval '2 hours' as earlier; earlier ------------------------------- 2015-06-12 21:17:43.678822-05 ```