What is My Life Dots?

My Life Dots is a free online wallpaper calendar builder for your iPhone lock screen. Choose a grid style — daily habit tracker, monthly calendar, year progress, or life in weeks — and it generates a custom wallpaper image. It updates automatically every midnight using iOS Shortcuts. No app download, no account, no subscription required.

What is a wallpaper calendar?

A wallpaper calendar is a phone wallpaper that displays a live calendar grid — showing days, weeks, or year progress — directly on your lock screen or home screen. Unlike a widget or an app, a wallpaper calendar is always visible the moment you pick up your phone. My Life Dots creates wallpaper calendars that show your habits, year progress, or entire lifetime as a simple dot grid.

What is a year progress wallpaper?

A year progress wallpaper shows all 365 days of the current year as a dot grid on your iPhone lock screen — completed days fill in, remaining days stay open. My Life Dots generates a year progress wallpaper that updates automatically every midnight via iOS Shortcuts, so every morning you see exactly how far through the year you are without opening any app.

How does a habit tracker wallpaper work?

A habit tracker wallpaper places your daily habit streak directly on your iPhone lock screen as a dot grid. My Life Dots generates this as a wallpaper image — not a widget — so it is visible every single time you pick up your phone without any taps. The wallpaper updates automatically at midnight via iOS Shortcuts to reflect the new day’s progress.

What is “life in weeks” and why does it matter?

The “life in weeks” concept — popularised by Tim Urban of WaitButWhy — visualises your entire lifespan as a grid of small boxes, each representing one week. Most people have around 4,680 weeks in a lifetime. Seeing how many are already filled in, and how many remain, creates a calm but powerful sense of time-awareness. My Life Dots turns this into a live wallpaper that updates every week automatically.

Is My Life Dots free?

Yes. My Life Dots is completely free to use. You can create and download a wallpaper calendar at mylifedots.com with no account required and no subscription. Optional premium themes and styles are available for users who want more customisation options.

Does My Life Dots require an app download?

No. My Life Dots runs entirely in your browser at mylifedots.com — nothing to download from the App Store. You create your wallpaper in the browser, download the image, and set it on your iPhone. The automatic daily update uses iOS Shortcuts, which is pre-installed on every iPhone, so no third-party app is ever needed.

Is My Life Dots a Pretty Progress alternative?

Yes. My Life Dots is a free, browser-based alternative to Pretty Progress and similar habit tracker wallpaper apps. Unlike Pretty Progress, My Life Dots requires no App Store download, is completely free, and combines daily habit tracking with year progress and life-in-weeks views in one wallpaper. It works on any iPhone via iOS Shortcuts with no subscription.

Wallpaper vs widget — which is better for habit tracking?

A wallpaper is better for passive awareness. It is visible every single time you pick up your phone — before you open anything. A widget requires you to actively look at your home screen. For habits you want to stay top-of-mind throughout the day without active effort, a lock screen wallpaper like My Life Dots is more effective. You check your phone 80–150 times a day — your wallpaper gets all of that attention.

How is My Life Dots different from Left or WeeklyDots?

My Life Dots is the only tool that combines all four modes — daily habit tracker, monthly calendar, year progress, and life in weeks — in one free web tool with no app download. WeeklyDots offers life-in-weeks only. Left is a widget app (not a wallpaper) that requires an App Store download. My Life Dots works instantly in any browser, is completely free, and produces a wallpaper rather than a widget.

How do I set up the automatic wallpaper update on iPhone?

After creating your wallpaper on mylifedots.com, open the iOS Shortcuts app, create a Personal Automation triggered at midnight daily, add a “Get Contents of URL” action using your My Life Dots wallpaper URL, then add “Set Wallpaper Photo” set to both Lock Screen and Home Screen. Disable “Ask Before Running” so it runs silently. The entire setup takes about 5 minutes and runs automatically every night forever.

Does My Life Dots work with iOS 26?

Yes. My Life Dots is fully compatible with iOS 26. The wallpaper creator works in Safari on iOS 26, and the iOS Shortcuts automation for automatic midnight updates works with iOS 26’s Shortcuts app without any changes to your existing setup.

Blog

Calendar Wallpaper Guide: Life Calendar & Wallpaper Calendar (2026)

April 8, 2026

What a life calendar wallpaper and calendar wallpaper are, why the lock screen beats apps, and how to build yours with the LifeDots wallpaper creator in minutes.

What if you could see your entire life on one screen — not as years or numbers, but as tiny boxes, each one a week?

That is what a life calendar wallpaper is: a grid on your lock screen where filled squares are weeks you have lived and empty squares are weeks still ahead.

Inspired by the life in weeks idea, this visual helps people rethink how they spend time — without opening an app.

What is a life calendar wallpaper?

A life calendar breaks a typical lifespan into weeks (about 4,680 weeks over ~90 years). A life calendar wallpaper is that grid exported as a phone background so you see it dozens of times a day — on unlock, notifications, and idle moments.

Why this hits so hard

We all say we know time is limited. When your weeks are visible:

You feel how many are already behind you
Weekends and “someday” feel more concrete
Low-value distractions are easier to drop

It is quiet urgency: not panic, clarity.

Benefits people report

Time awareness — you think in weeks, not vague years
Less procrastination — the grid is a nudge without a notification
Goal alignment — you ask whether this week moved what matters
Daily motivation — every glance reminds you time is moving

Who it helps

Students or career switchers who feel “stuck”
Builders and founders juggling too many threads
Anyone in a routine who wants more intention
People who tried productivity apps and stopped opening them

Why wallpaper can beat “another app”

Most habit apps compete for opens and die in a folder.

Your lock screen wallpaper shows up 100+ times a day with zero taps: no streak guilt, no inbox — just a steady visual of finite time.

Why searches for this are growing

People want minimal, visual reminders. Queries like life calendar wallpaper and wallpaper creator reflect that: one image you control beats ten dashboards you ignore.

How to create a life calendar wallpaper (three steps)

1. Start from your birth date

That anchors how many weeks you have lived so far.

2. Generate your grid

Map the rest of your life in weeks and pick a layout that fits your phone.

3. Save and set as wallpaper

Use the LifeDots wallpaper creator to customize colors, themes, and padding, then set the image as your lock screen for maximum visibility.

Make it yours

Good tools let you change palette, highlight milestones, use dark or minimal themes, and tune spacing so the grid stays readable at a glance.

How to use it well

Prefer the lock screen — you see it without unlocking
Glance daily; do a slightly deeper review weekly or monthly
Pair the visual with one concrete priority per season, not ten

Closing thought

You do not need more time on the clock. You need to feel the weeks you already have.

A life calendar wallpaper does not fix your life overnight — but it changes the default question from “What should I do today?” to “Is this worth a week of my life?”

And that shift, repeated, changes how you live.