The 4,000 weeks problem

Let me share a number that's been living in my head rent-free.

4,000.

That's roughly how many weeks you get if you live to 80.

I first came across this in Oliver Burkeman's book Four Thousand Weeks, and I haven't been able to shake it since. Because when you frame a lifetime in weeks instead of years, something shifts.

80 years sounds like a lot. 4,000 weeks sounds... not.

Here's another way to feel it: if you're 30, you've already spent about 1,500 of those weeks. If you're 40, you're past the halfway mark. The sand in the hourglass isn't just trickling; it's been falling for a while now.

This isn't meant to be morbid. It's meant to be clarifying.

Because when you realize how little time you actually have, you start to look at your calendar differently. You start to look at your life differently.

That meeting you don't want to attend? That's not just an hour. That's a tiny slice of your 4,000 weeks, gone forever, never coming back.

That Sunday you spent doom-scrolling? Same thing.

That project you keep saying you'll "get to someday"? Someday is eating your weeks.

Burkeman's insight is that we treat time like it's infinitely renewable. We act as if there will always be more of it. "I'll do that next year." "I'll start when things calm down." "I'll travel when I retire."

But time doesn't work that way. It doesn't wait for you to be ready. It just keeps moving.

The philosopher Martin Heidegger called this our "finitude," the fundamental fact that we are beings who will one day not exist. Most of us spend our lives avoiding this truth. We distract ourselves, stay busy, fill our calendars with noise. Anything to avoid the uncomfortable reality that our time here is limited.

But Burkeman argues that confronting this truth is actually liberating. When you accept that you can't do everything, you stop trying to. You stop chasing the illusion of "catching up." You start making choices based on what actually matters, not what's urgent, not what other people want from you, but what you want your life to be about.

"If you want to make more money, you can always find a way. But you can never make more time. Time is the ultimate limited resource." — Naval Ravikant

Naval is right. We can always earn more money. We can recover from financial setbacks. But time? Once it's gone, it's gone. There's no overtime, no bonus, no windfall that brings it back.

This is why I've become increasingly protective of my calendar. Not because I'm antisocial or don't value people. But because every "yes" is a "no" to something else. Every hour I give away is an hour I'm not spending on what matters most.

The question isn't: "How do I fit it all in?" The question is: "What deserves my finite weeks?"

I don't think there's one right answer. It will be different for everyone. But I think asking the question is the beginning of a different kind of life. One where your calendar reflects your values instead of your obligations. One where you're the author of your time, not just a passenger.