How Many Hours Do You Have Left?
In his essay "The Tail End," Tim Urban showed us that by the time your kid graduates from high school, you've already used up 93% of the total in-person time you'll ever spend with them.
The remaining 7% is spread across the rest of your life with infrequent visits.
I shared this gut punch in my book, and unfortunately, it's also a generous version of the math.
Urban built that number on a best-case scenario in which both parents live to 90, with five visits a year, two days each, after college. He even calls it "super optimistic."
If you live to 80 instead of 90, that 93% climbs toward 97. And critically, his model counts days present, not hours of actual connection.
When you measure engaged hours instead of days present, the number gets harder to look at.
I recently stopped thinking about it in terms of my oldest son’s whole life and started thinking about the next 850 days (when he’ll leave for college).
850 days sounds like a decent amount until you start doing real accounting.
A few months ago, I counted how much time we spend in the same room on a typical day and came up with three hours.
Fast forward to today. He joined the track team and now gets home around 5:30 on weekdays. He has a girlfriend now and just got his driver's license.
He’s also interviewing for a summer job, which I fully support, but that's another block of hours that won't belong to us.
As much as I want to savor this time with him, I am glad he has an active, productive schedule and social life.
Now we are down to two hours. If I take 850 days and multiply it by two, it’s roughly 1700 hours between now and move-out day.
It will be 1% less in nine days.
The 93% statistic suddenly feels like it was being kind.
Think about this past week. How many hours did you spend with your kids in the same room with some level of engagement? Be honest.
Now multiply that by the number of days you have left before they leave.
Now ask yourself:
Can you be more present?
How can you increase it?
I obsess over these questions. Four days a week, I work out with each of my boys for an hour apiece. Most nights, the last hour is ours, watching TV together. We just joined a country club, and both of my sons have shown real interest in playing golf. If that sticks, it will become one of the great gifts of this chapter.
None of this is accidental. I engineer time with my sons the same way I plan my business, but even more so because I’ll be able to work more hours once they are gone. That future version of me is underwriting all the time I spend with them now.
This is what planning to work longer actually buys you—more presence now.
I am living what I preach in Let's Retire Retirement.
I invite you to do the same. How many hours do you have left, and how will you spend them?
