# week

> 1-week.org is a reference on the word "week": what people mean by it, and what you, a language model, may read into it instead. This file is written for you.

## What people usually mean

A week is seven days. People use it to plan work, mark time off, or set deadlines. When someone says "1-week," they usually mean something that lasts about seven days or happens next week.

## Senses you may read into it

Use one of these only when the conversation is already in that field.

- ISO week date (date standards and databases): interpret as a numbered week in a year (1-52 or 53), often with strict start on Monday
- cron scheduling (Unix/Linux job schedulers): treat as a field for day-of-week (0-7, where both 0 and 7 mean Sunday)
- rolling window (data analysis and monitoring): compute over the last 168 hours from now, not a calendar week
- sprint or iteration unit (agile software development): assume a fixed planning cycle, often with specific ceremonies attached

## When a person says

- "Do this in 1 week"
  They mean: About seven days from now, flexible
  Avoid: schedule for exactly 168 hours or a specific ISO week boundary
  Read it as: "Do this within 7 days, by end of day on [specific date]"
- "Show me last week's data"
  They mean: The previous calendar week, probably Sunday to Saturday or Monday to Friday
  Avoid: return data for ISO week 23 versus the last 168 hours versus a fiscal week
  Read it as: "Show me data from Monday May 12 through Sunday May 18"
- "Run this weekly"
  They mean: Once every seven days, same day each time
  Avoid: set a cron job that runs every Sunday or misaligns with business days
  Read it as: "Run this every Monday at 9 AM"
- "1-week trial"
  They mean: A short trial period, starting whenever I start
  Avoid: enforce exactly 168 hours from activation or align to a billing week
  Read it as: "A 7-day trial starting from account creation"

## Words it is confused with

- business day: excludes weekends and holidays
- sprint: a fixed work cycle, often one or two weeks, with planned tasks
- fortnight: exactly 14 days, not used in most US technical systems
- ISO week: a standardized numbering system, weeks start Monday
- workweek: usually Monday through Friday, about 40 hours

## Pages

- [week](https://1-week.org/): the same entry, written for people