Four Thousand Weeks — What's Your Number?

Hi, it’s Diana from Healthy Seniors, and I’m continuing my series on books I’ve read and enjoyed.

This time I’m sharing Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. The title stopped me the first time I saw it. Four thousand weeks — where does that number come from?

It’s simple, and a little startling once you do the math. The average human life lasts roughly 80 years. Multiply that by 52 weeks, and you get just over four thousand weeks. That’s it. That’s a whole life, laid out in weeks rather than years. Somehow the weeks make it feel more real than the years do — more countable, more concrete, more finite.

I sat with that number for a while. And then I did the math I suspect many of you will do too: at 60, or 70, or 80, four thousand weeks is not your number anymore. Your number is smaller. Much smaller.

And I’ll be honest about why this landed so personally for me. Both of my parents are turning 80 this year. And quietly, in the back of my mind — the way you don…