Data story · life in weeks × time use

Four thousand weeks, and who gets them

Live to 80 and you get about four thousand weeks. That’s Oliver Burkeman’s arithmetic, and the starting point of his book. The American Time Use Survey adds the part nobody asks about: who you spend those weeks with runs on a schedule. Friends peak at 18. Coworkers hold the middle decades. Children fill a window from about 27 to 51, peaking at 39. Time alone climbs from your forties on, to 8 hours a day by 79. Put your birthday in and the grid fills in. Add your kids and it does the tail-end arithmetic from the survey’s raw diaries: 49% of a parent’s at-home hours with a child are gone by the seventh birthday.

Sep 22, 20265 sources

Your birthday

Curves for

Your kids, if you have them

Kid 1 · Jan 2014Kid 2 · Jan 2018

Divorced or separated? The kids split time between two homes

Showing an example: born January 1986, kids born 2014 and 2018. Put your birthday in. It stays in this browser.

Four thousand weeks

Weeks lived

2,119

51% of the 4,160

Weeks to 80

2,040

after this one

Odds you reach 80

60%

SSA 2023 life table · everyone

Coin-flip age

half of people your age live past it

Each square is a week: filled once you’ve lived it, an outline while it’s ahead. The line on top is the odds you’re still here at each age, from the SSA’s 2023 life table (everyone).

Table view: every age, every curve (everyone)

Age	Turned in	Alone	Partner	Coworkers	Children	Other family	Friends	Odds you reach it
0	1986	—	—	—	—	—	—	lived
1	1987	—	—	—	—	—	—	lived
2	1988	—	—	—	—	—	—	lived
3	1989	—	—	—	—	—	—	lived
4	1990	—	—	—	—	—	—	lived
5	1991	—	—	—	—	—	—	lived
6	1992	—	—	—	—	—	—	lived
7	1993	—	—	—	—	—	—	lived
8	1994	—	—	—	—	—	—	lived
9	1995	—	—	—	—	—	—	lived
10	1996	—	—	—	—	—	—	lived
11	1997	—	—	—	—	—	—	lived
12	1998	—	—	—	—	—	—	lived
13	1999	—	—	—	—	—	—	lived
14	2000	—	—	—	—	—	—	lived
15	2001	3.7	0.0	0.2	0.3	4.3	1.5	lived
16	2002	3.9	0.0	0.4	0.4	4.1	1.4	lived
17	2003	4.1	0.0	0.8	0.4	3.7	1.8	lived
18	2004	4.5	0.1	1.3	0.5	3.7	2.0	lived
19	2005	5.1	0.3	2.1	0.4	3.0	1.8	lived
20	2006	5.1	0.4	2.3	0.7	2.9	1.8	lived
21	2007	5.0	0.8	2.5	1.0	2.6	1.8	lived
22	2008	5.3	0.8	2.7	1.0	2.2	1.4	lived
23	2009	4.9	1.4	3.1	1.4	2.0	1.5	lived
24	2010	4.8	1.7	3.3	1.5	1.8	1.4	lived
25	2011	5.2	1.9	3.1	1.7	1.6	1.1	lived
26	2012	5.1	2.3	3.2	1.8	1.4	1.2	lived
27	2013	4.8	2.6	3.3	2.3	1.4	1.1	lived
28	2014	4.8	2.8	3.2	2.8	1.2	0.9	lived
29	2015	4.8	2.9	3.1	2.9	1.3	0.9	lived
30	2016	4.7	3.0	3.3	3.1	1.1	0.8	lived
31	2017	4.8	3.4	2.9	3.5	1.1	0.8	lived
32	2018	4.8	3.2	3.1	3.6	1.0	0.7	lived
33	2019	4.6	3.4	2.8	4.2	1.0	0.7	lived
34	2020	4.7	3.4	2.9	4.1	1.1	0.6	lived
35	2021	4.7	3.5	2.9	4.2	0.9	0.6	lived
36	2022	5.0	3.2	2.8	4.1	1.0	0.6	lived
37	2023	4.8	3.4	2.9	4.1	0.9	0.6	lived
38	2024	4.8	3.3	3.0	4.2	0.9	0.6	lived
39	2025	5.0	3.6	2.7	4.3	0.9	0.5	lived
40	2026	5.2	3.3	2.9	3.9	0.8	0.5	lived
41	2027	5.3	3.2	2.8	4.0	0.9	0.5	99.9%
42	2028	5.3	3.2	3.0	3.7	0.8	0.6	99.7%
43	2029	5.6	3.2	2.6	3.6	0.9	0.6	99.4%
44	2030	5.6	3.3	2.7	3.5	0.8	0.5	99.2%
45	2031	5.5	3.1	2.9	3.4	0.9	0.5	99%
46	2032	5.9	3.2	2.6	3.1	0.9	0.5	99%
47	2033	6.0	3.0	2.7	2.8	0.9	0.6	98%
48	2034	5.8	3.3	2.7	2.6	0.9	0.5	98%
49	2035	6.0	3.1	2.9	2.3	0.9	0.6	98%
50	2036	6.6	2.9	2.5	2.2	1.0	0.4	97%
51	2037	6.3	3.1	2.7	2.1	1.0	0.5	97%
52	2038	6.5	3.2	2.8	1.7	1.1	0.5	96%
53	2039	6.6	3.1	2.6	1.7	0.9	0.5	96%
54	2040	6.5	3.0	2.8	1.5	1.0	0.5	95%
55	2041	6.7	3.1	2.4	1.4	1.0	0.5	95%
56	2042	6.7	3.3	2.4	1.3	1.1	0.6	94%
57	2043	6.9	3.1	2.5	1.3	1.0	0.5	94%
58	2044	7.0	3.1	2.2	1.1	1.1	0.5	93%
59	2045	7.1	3.4	2.2	1.1	1.0	0.4	92%
60	2046	7.2	3.3	2.0	1.0	1.1	0.5	92%
61	2047	7.0	3.5	2.0	1.1	1.0	0.5	91%
62	2048	7.3	3.7	1.5	1.0	1.0	0.5	90%
63	2049	7.5	3.6	1.4	0.9	1.0	0.5	89%
64	2050	7.6	3.8	1.3	0.9	1.0	0.5	88%
65	2051	7.6	3.9	1.0	0.9	1.1	0.5	87%
66	2052	7.4	4.2	0.8	1.0	1.1	0.6	86%
67	2053	7.4	4.3	0.6	0.9	0.9	0.6	84%
68	2054	7.6	4.2	0.6	0.9	0.9	0.6	83%
69	2055	7.5	4.5	0.4	1.0	1.0	0.6	82%
70	2056	7.7	4.2	0.4	0.9	0.9	0.6	80%
71	2057	7.7	4.4	0.3	0.9	0.9	0.6	79%
72	2058	8.0	4.3	0.3	0.7	0.9	0.6	77%
73	2059	7.9	4.3	0.3	0.9	0.8	0.5	76%
74	2060	7.8	4.3	0.3	0.8	0.9	0.5	74%
75	2061	7.8	4.2	0.3	0.8	0.9	0.6	72%
76	2062	7.6	4.5	0.3	0.7	0.8	0.5	70%
77	2063	7.7	4.5	0.2	0.8	1.0	0.5	68%
78	2064	7.8	4.3	0.1	0.7	1.0	0.6	65%
79	2065	8.0	4.2	0.1	0.6	0.8	0.6	63%

Hours a day, averaged over every day of the week, from Our World in Data’s ATUS series (it starts at 15). The last column is the chance of being alive at that birthday from today, per the SSA 2023 life table.

Who gets the rest

Hours a day, by your age

From here, the average American spends more time alone; about as much time with a partner, other family and friends; less time with coworkers and children.

Your 2,040 weeks left, hour for hour

Alone590 wks5.1 → 6.9 h
Partner311 wks3.3 → 3.6 h
Coworkers141 wks2.9 → 1.7 h
Children137 wks4.0 → 1.6 h
Other family81 wks0.9 → 0.9 h
Friends45 wks0.5 → 0.5 h

The at-home years

Hours a day, by the kid’s age

A parent averages 7.1 hours a day in the room with a baby and 2.6 with a 17-year-old: 49% of it is gone by the seventh birthday, 76% by the twelfth.

Until each turns 18: hours left, summers left

Kid 112 now6,400 h5 summers80% of your at-home hours with Kid 1 are behind you: about 6,400 left, across 5 summers and 274 Saturdays.
Kid 28 now13,100 h9 summers59% of your at-home hours with Kid 2 are behind you: about 13,100 left, across 9 summers and 483 Saturdays.
Together19,600 han hour with two kids counts for each

What this isn’t

It isn’t your life. Every curve is an average of strangers: about 10,000 Americans a year walk the survey through one day. The companion curves pool 2010–2024 and the at-home curve 2010–2025, both skipping 2020, when the survey stopped for the spring.
The ages are different people. Today’s 70-year-olds grew up with different friends, jobs and family sizes than today’s 30-year-olds will have at 70. It’s a snapshot across generations, not one person aging.
The bands overlap. Dinner with a partner and the kids counts in both, and sleep and personal care count in none, so the stack’s height isn’t the hours in a day and the weeks in the ledger don’t add up to the weeks you have left.
“Children” in the stack means any child under 18 in the room — your own, grandkids, nieces and nephews. The at-home chart counts only a parent’s own children who live with them.
Two homes are a share of days. Weekend days run long, so every other weekend is about 20% of the hours, not 14%. On days a kid is around, the survey’s single fathers average 4–11% more hours with them than partnered fathers, and single mothers 1–6% fewer, so a solo dad’s days likely run a little longer than this counts. Holidays and summers split however your agreement says.
It counts the room, not the attention. The survey records who was in the room during each activity. A phone at dinner counts the same as a conversation.
The odds hold 2023’s death rates fixed for the rest of your life. Medicine usually improves, so the real odds are likely a little better.

How the numbers were built

The grid is 80 years of 52 squares, 4,160 in all. Eighty calendar years is 4,174 weeks; each year’s extra day or two folds into its last square, so every column starts on a birthday and nothing drifts. A square fills once its week is over.
Who gets the rest stacks Our World in Data’s cut of the American Time Use Survey: hours a day by single year of age, 15 to 80, weighted, for everyone, men and women. The ledger adds each band up from today to the 80th birthday and divides by the 168 hours in a week. “More” and “less” compare the average day ahead with the five years around your age; within 15% counts as about as much.
The at-home curve is new. From the BLS microdata (2010–2025, 2020 excluded, 151,394 diary days) I took every parent, summed the minutes each of their own household children was listed as in the room, and averaged by the child’s age with the survey’s final weights: 3,304 to 5,657 parent–child pairs per year of age. Run on OWID’s own 2010–2024 pool, the same pipeline reproduces its published time-alone figures at 30, 40 and 60 to the second decimal. The derived table is in the page’s data file, linked below.
The kids’ numbers run each kid’s birthday through that curve: hours had so far at the average rate, hours left before 18, and the summers (counted at July 1) and Saturdays between today and the eighteenth birthday. With two homes, every year after the date keeps your schedule’s share of that year’s hours, weighting weekdays and weekend days by the same diaries’ weekday and weekend rates for a kid that age. Equal time is exactly half. Kids who live mostly elsewhere are a different group in the survey: parents average under an hour and a half a day with them.
The odds come from the Social Security Administration’s 2023 period life table, with “everyone” pooling men and women at equal births.

Sources: Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021); Our World in Data, “Who Americans spend their time with, by age” (American Time Use Survey 2010–2024); U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey 2003–2025 microdata (respondent, roster, activity and who files); Social Security Administration, Actuarial Life Table (2023 period table, 2026 Trustees Report); Tim Urban, Wait But Why, “Your Life in Weeks” and “The Tail End”, where the grid and the tail-end idea come from. Data for this page: four-thousand-weeks.json.