Rant: I was dead wrong about mood tracking in my bujo

For like a year I thought mood tracking was total fluff. I'd see these elaborate color coded spreads on Instagram and just roll my eyes. I figured I know how I feel, why do I need to write it down? Then last month my therapist suggested I try it for at least two weeks. I made a tiny little grid in the corner of my weekly spread, just a dot for each day with a color. After three days I noticed I was marking all the same color. That got me thinking, I actually started to see a pattern of bad days lining up with specific work stuff. It was kind of a shock to see it so clearly. I ended up switching up my schedule a bit and it actually helped. Has anyone else had a bujo technique they totally dismissed that ended up surprising them?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_john16d ago

Wait, did you say you marked all the same color for three days in a row? That sounds like you were only tracking one mood per day, which is actually kind of missing the point. The real value comes from tracking multiple times a day or at least noting what triggered the mood, not just the overall feeling for the whole day. Like, I tried it for a week and realized I was marking "tired" every morning but "good" by evening, and that showed me my mornings were just a slump rather than a bad day. Did you try checking in more than once a day after that first week?

claire_walker15d ago

The funny thing nobody's talking about is how mood tracking can actually make you a better liar to yourself. Once you see that pattern of bad days, it's tempting to start fudging the color just to break the streak or make your life look less depressing on paper. I caught myself doing that and had to put a note saying "BE HONEST YOU DUMMY" at the top of my tracker lol.