Life in weeks calculator
Your life as a grid of weeks: one row for every year, one box for every week, and the weeks you have already lived dimmed.
How the weeks are counted
Enter your birth date and the calculator counts the days from then until today and divides by seven. Each row of the grid is one year of your life, from one birthday to the next, cut into 52 weeks. The weeks you have lived are dimmed, the week you are in now is orange, and the weeks still ahead are solid.
A year is 52 weeks and one day, or two in a leap year, so 52 boxes per row leaves out a day or two each year. The numbers above the grid do not: weeks lived and weeks left are exact counts of whole weeks. For an 80-year lifespan that is 4,174 weeks, while the grid draws 4,160 boxes.
Saturdays left counts the Saturdays from tomorrow until the end of the lifespan you chose. Some people find it a more tangible number than weeks: it is roughly how many free weekends are still ahead.
Where the idea comes from
Drawing a lifetime as a sheet of weekly boxes was made popular by Tim Urban's essay "Your Life in Weeks" on Wait But Why. The thought behind it is much older: memento mori, the Stoic practice of remembering that time is limited, so that you spend it on what matters to you. Seen on one page, a life looks both long and finite, and an ordinary week looks like what it is: one box out of a few thousand.
Most people who keep a life calendar don't use it to feel gloomy. It helps with perspective: saying no to things that don't matter, and yes to the trip, the call or the project that keeps being postponed. If weeks feel too stark, Left can show the same life in months or years.
About the lifespan
The starting value comes from the World Health Organization's 2019 life tables for the whole world, averaged for women and men. It is not life expectancy at birth: it is your current age plus the average years remaining at that age, which is a little higher, because you have already lived through the years behind you. It is rounded to a whole year and stays between 60 and 100.
An average says nothing certain about one person. Health, habits, country and plain chance all matter, which is why you can move the slider to any lifespan you like. For an estimate that takes lifestyle into account, try the life expectancy calculator; to see your exact age in years, months and days, use the age calculator.
Mark a date
Add a date in "Mark a date" to ring the week it falls in: a wedding, a move, the birth of a child, or a day still to come, such as a planned retirement or a 50th birthday. Marked weeks in the past show how far you have come; marked weeks ahead show how many boxes are left until then.
Keep your life grid on your iPhone
Save as wallpaper makes a phone-sized image with room for the clock at the top; Save as square image makes one for sharing. A saved image doesn't change, though, so next week it is one box behind. Left keeps the grid up to date by itself:
- Install Left on your iPhone, open Settings and tap Your lifespan.
- Set your Birthday, and under See your life in... choose Weeks.
- Open Time Left and switch to the life view to see the grid and your weeks left.
- Add the Life or You widget to your Home Screen or Lock Screen, or set up Left Wallpaper in Life mode so your Lock Screen redraws itself.
Left uses an 80-year lifespan unless you change it; you can set your own lifespan in the app. More on the options in the life calendar guide, the lifespan guide and our comparison of life calendar apps for iPhone.
Questions
Is this a prediction of how long I will live?
No. The lifespan is an average from population life tables, or a number you choose. The grid is a way to see time, not a forecast for any one person.
How many weeks are in a lifetime?
An 80-year life is 4,174 weeks (29,220 days divided by 7). Life-in-weeks posters draw 52 boxes per year, which makes 4,160, because a year is 52 weeks and one or two days.
Why does each row have 52 boxes?
Each row is one year of your life, from one birthday to the next, split into 52 weeks. The extra day or two each year is left out of the drawing but counted in the totals.
What lifespan does the calculator use?
For your age, the average from the World Health Organization 2019 life tables (world, women and men averaged), rounded to a whole year. Move the slider to use any lifespan from 60 to 100.
Is my birth date stored or sent anywhere?
No. Everything is calculated in your browser. If you use Share, the dates are part of the link, so only share it with people you are happy to tell.
How do I keep my life in weeks on my iPhone?
Save the grid as a wallpaper from this page, or install Left: set your birthday in Settings, choose to see your life in weeks, and add a Life or You widget or the Left Wallpaper, which updates itself.
See your life in weeks.
Left draws your life as a grid from your birthday, with Life widgets for your Home Screen, Lock Screen and Apple Watch and a wallpaper that updates itself.
Scan or search "Left" on the App Store.