What a life calendar is
One box is one week of your life. Rows of 52 boxes (one year) are stacked up to your expected lifespan. The idea was popularized by Tim Urban’s "Your Life in Weeks". Fill in the weeks that have passed and you can see at a glance where you are.
Printed grid
Print a 52×90 grid, pin it to the wall and color one box a week. Nothing beats coloring by hand. But you first have to count and color every week since birth, and after missing a few weeks you have to count again.
Spreadsheet
Make 52 columns × 90 rows of square cells and use conditional formatting to color cells where "(row − 1) × 52 + column ≤ weeks lived". Weeks lived is =INT((TODAY()-birthdate)/7). Awkward to view on a phone.
Life Calendar app
These are real screens from the Android app "Life Calendar". Sample entries in the screenshots are in Korean; the app itself runs in English.
Enter your birth date and life expectancy
Under Set Up Your Life on the Calendar tab, enter your date of birth (digits only, like 19900101, works) and a life expectancy. The grid fills in immediately, and the top card shows which week of your life you are in.
Open the full-screen grid
Tap Open full-screen grid to see your whole life on one screen. Pinch to zoom and tap a box to see your age and anything recorded that week. You can switch between week, month and year views.
Side by side
| Printed grid | Spreadsheet | App | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly fill-in | By hand | Automatic | Automatic |
| Marking events | Write on it | Cell notes | Moments and chapters in color |
| On your phone | A photo | Awkward | Easy |
| The joy of coloring | Highest | None | None |
They combine well: save the grid from the app as an image, print it, and color it by hand on the wall.
FAQ
Is my birth date sent anywhere?
No. Your birth date and records are stored only on the device. There is no sign-up.
Why isn’t one row exactly one year?
A year is slightly longer than 52 weeks. See 52 boxes and the birth-weekday rule.
Is there an iPhone version?
It is currently available for Android on Google Play.
Life Calendar
No sign-up, and your birth date and records stay on your phone. Free on Android.