Life in Weeks: A Reminder for 2025

what if you measured life by moments instead of years?

Author

Rames Quinerie
December 27, 2024

[…] don’t try to be someone, rather find the thing that is so engaging that it makes you forget yourself.
— Boyd Varty

That’s it—2024 is wrapping up, and another year gets checked off the list. ✅ Finished. Listo. Terminé.

Kind of sobering, isn’t it? But what if I told you there’s something even more depressing?

Your Life in Weeks, a classic blog post by Tim Urban, takes a visual approach to understanding life’s brevity. Here’s one of the first graphs:

At 26, I still feel relatively young, so it doesn’t hit me too hard—but depending on your age, it might land differently.

Tim’s post explores this idea further with visuals like your life in months or weeks. But the part that stuck with me most is his follow-up post: The Tail End.

But since doing the Life in Weeks post, I’ve been thinking about something else.

Instead of measuring your life in units of time, you can measure it in activities or events. To use myself as an example:

I’m 34, so let’s be super optimistic and say I’ll be hanging around drawing stick figures till I’m 90. If so, I have a little under 60 winters left:

I know all this seems quite ‘duh’, but there's a big difference between knowing something and actually seeing it visualized. It serves as a powerful reminder that life is shorter than we think.

Winters are cute, but what about more personal stuff? Like relationships?

I’ve been thinking about my parents, who are in their mid-60s. During my first 18 years, I spent some time with my parents during at least 90% of my days. But since heading off to college and then later moving out of Boston, I’ve probably seen them an average of only five times a year each, for an average of maybe two days each time. 10 days a year. About 3% of the days I spent with them each year of my childhood.

Being in their mid-60s, let’s continue to be super optimistic and say I’m one of the incredibly lucky people to have both parents alive into my 60s. That would give us about 30 more years of coexistence. If the ten days a year thing holds, that’s 300 days left to hang with mom and dad. Less time than I spent with them in any one of my 18 childhood years.

When you put things into perspective, you might realize that many experiences are closer to their end than you'd imagined. I hope this example doesn't create a sense of urgency, but rather helps you make the most of each moment.

Life is short. While there are ways to make it feel slower, striving for a slower life might not be the answer. Just as obsessively tracking your sleep can backfire—making you more stressed about getting that perfect night's rest—trying too hard to slow down time can actually make it slip away faster. It's all a mind game.

Instead, I hope this perspective inspires you to be more present—whether you're spending time with loved ones, pursuing your passions, or simply going about your daily routines. After all, living mindfully and intentionally can only enrich your life.

One last cheesy reminder: this is your life. You have complete freedom to choose your path. You're also solely responsible for what happens along the way. Don't let others—whether it's social norms or influencers—dictate how you should live your life. They won't be the ones accountable in the end—you will.

How's that for a New Year's resolution?

As 2024 ends, I’m feeling good about where Make With James is headed. My one goal for 2025? Publish 52 issues and keep the excitement alive with every single one.

Thank you for reading, engaging, and supporting my work. I’m just a kid sharing his thoughts, but it means the world to know they resonate with you.

Much love ❤️

— James

Tools & Websites

  • Replit is an online platform designed for coding, collaboration, and hosting software projects. It provides a cloud-based environment where you can write, test, and run code directly in your web browser. It now also integrates AI, helping you build apps super easily, with simple prompts.

  • Readwise is a tool that helps you save, organize, and retain highlights and notes from books, articles, and other content. It uses features like daily reviews and integrations with note-taking apps to ensure key insights stay fresh and accessible. Its Reader feature also lets you highlight and manage web articles seamlessly.

  • dverso is a Milan-based creative studio specialized in immersive web design & development. Their own website just speak for themselves ↓

James’ Library

Article

You've already gotten the gist of it in the intro, so I won't bother you much more with it. Here's Tim's conclusion though:

So what do we do with this information?

Setting aside my secret hope that technological advances will let me live to 700, I see three takeaways here:

1) Living in the same place as the people you love matters. I probably have 10X the time left with the people who live in my city as I do with the people who live somewhere else.

2) Priorities matter. Your remaining face time with any person depends largely on where that person falls on your list of life priorities. Make sure this list is set by you—not by unconscious inertia.

3) Quality time matters. If you’re in your last 10% of time with someone you love, keep that fact in the front of your mind when you’re with them and treat that time as what it actually is: precious.

PS: someone made a cool widget that lets you see your life in weeks, months, and years based on your age.

Article

In this lovely and warm essay, Jeanette Winterson proclaims her love for the night. A time to slow down, be unproductive, spend time under blankets, make love, and eat rich, dark food. The writing is beautiful and heartfelt.

There is great pleasure to be had from coming home on a wild night when the weather is vile, and pouring a glass of good red wine, and cooking dark food, such as mushroom risotto or braised beef and turnips served with dark green cabbage and truffle mash. If you have only 15 minutes to cook, make it mushrooms on toast with chopped parsley, and a chicory and endive salad. But keep the good red wine … This kind of cooking and eating cheers you up in winter, because it is what the body needs.

…Aesthetic Corner…

The reMarkable Paper Pro is a digital tablet that feels like writing on paper. It's great for taking notes and reading because it combines old-school paper feel with modern features. You can:

  • Save your notes to the cloud

  • Write on PDFs and eBooks

  • Convert your handwriting to typed text

  • Share files through Google Drive and Dropbox

What makes it special is its simple, distraction-free design. There are no notifications or apps to distract you - just a clean space for writing, drawing, and reading.

Hide and Seek, 2024
Silicon, hair and textile

Don't Worry, Be Happy, 2022
Silicon, hair, textile and concrete

Max Siedentopf is a multi-disciplinary conceptual artist and Emmy-award winning director working across video, photography, sculpture, creative direction and everything in-between and is the founder of the art publication ORDINARY.

He also makes dope, super-realistic sculptures ☝️

Sustainable Living

Visum Mundi, a 7,700 sq ft space in the Netherlands redesigned by architects and interior design studio FARE INC., is an eco-conscious cinema and boutique that seamlessly blends sustainability, community, and cultural heritage. It pays homage to the site’s historical significance, including its role in the WWII peace treaty.

The cinema is a vibrant community hub. Its horseshoe-shaped bar, curated art, and cozy design invite visitors to connect and unwind. Plans for a future exhibition space will further strengthen its role as a cultural centerpiece in Wageningen.

Sustainability is at the heart of Visum Mundi. With eco-friendly materials and green design principles, the cinema reduces its environmental impact while offering a welcoming, modern atmosphere. More than a place to watch films, Visum Mundi redefines cinemas as spaces of storytelling, community, and responsibility.

I bet you wish your hometown cinema looked something like this 😉

Friends of James

  • Beehiiv — the powerhouse behind all my newsletters, helping me craft, design, grow my audience, and monetize effortlessly.

  • Notion — my go-to tool for the last 6+ years, where I store all my notes, manage tasks, and essentially run both my life and businesses.

  • Webflow — the engine behind all my websites, letting me design, build, and launch seamlessly without code.

  • Make — the tool that runs my business on autopilot, handling all recurring and time-consuming tasks

*these are affiliate links, which means I earn a small commission if you make a purchase through them. Your support directly helps keep this newsletter going ✌️

Reply

or to participate.