A daily mood tracker template, two dots a day, one page a week
This daily mood tracker template is a one-page weekly strip, shade a circle in the morning, shade one in the evening, write one word for the day. Free PDF, no email, sized to tape inside the notebook you already carry.
Get the template
One page per week. Two dots a day. Free, no email needed, print a small stack at the start of the month.
What's on the page
One sheet of paper, seven rows. The whole page fits on a half-letter strip, so it tapes neatly inside the cover of a notebook without flapping past the edge. The deliberate omissions matter as much as the fields. There's no streak counter, no daily prompt, no quote at the top.
- Day label, three letters down the left edge. Pre-printed Mon through Sun so the page can't slide out of order.
- Morning dots, five small circles. Shade one within ten minutes of waking, scale of one (worst) to five (best).
- Evening dots, five small circles, same scale. Shade before bed.
- One-word feeling, your vocabulary, not a dropdown. Tired, antsy, calm, foggy, restless. Pick the louder of two if they fight for it.
- Three-word note, a thin line to the right, sized for fragments rather than sentences. Use only on days that surprised you.
- Optional column, a narrow strip at the far right, sized for one extra signal: sleep hours, a medication tick, a habit letter. Skip it if you don't have one to track.
How to use it
The whole routine takes under a minute on a normal day. Six steps once, then it becomes muscle memory.
- Tape the strip inside a notebook you already use. The page lives where you already write, not in a separate folder. One less surface to remember.
- Shade the morning dot within ten minutes of waking. First instinct beats a careful read. One is the worst start you can remember; five is the rare bright morning. Most mornings are threes.
- Shade the evening dot before bed. Same scale, same hand. The two dots together show whether the day moved you up, down, or held flat, the part a single rating hides.
- Write one word for the dominant feeling. Your vocabulary, not a fixed list. If two words fight for it, pick the louder one and move on.
- Add a three-word note only if the day surprised you. Not every day earns a note. The line is for the outliers, the days you'll otherwise forget you had.
- Read the week on Sunday night. Look at the column of dots top to bottom. Two minutes. You are looking for the shape, not making a plan.
Why two dots beat one
A single end-of-day rating averages out swings that matter. A morning four that slid to an evening one is not the same day as a morning two that climbed to a four, but a one-number tracker stores them both as a three. The morning-and-evening split keeps the signal that the day-shape actually carried.
The shading itself does a small but real piece of psychological work. Putting a feeling into a chosen mark, a word, a color, a filled circle, measurably lowers activity in the brain's threat circuits compared with letting the feeling sit unlabelled (Lieberman et al., 2007). You are not just recording the day; you are doing the smallest version of the affect-labelling exercise a clinician would walk you through, twice.
When the daily strip is the right tool
The format earns its place in three situations:
- You're starting from zero. A week-per-page commits you to seven days, not thirty, short enough to finish, long enough to see a shape. If you fall off, you only lose a week.
- Your mornings and evenings feel different. Anxiety often spikes in the AM; low mood often deepens at night. One rating a day hides this; two reveal it inside a week.
- You're keeping the practice off the phone. Some people log faster in pen, bedside, no screen, no notification. The strip is sized for that.
If you want the bigger arc instead, see the writing-first daily template or the printable bundle for a year-in-pixels.
Common mistakes
- Back-filling missed days from memory. Memory smooths swings. An invented row in a tracker is worse than an empty one. It teaches you a pattern that wasn't there.
- Adding three extra columns. Sleep, water, exercise, meds, period, caffeine: pick one. The page is built for two dots and a word; every extra field is another reason to skip a night.
- Treating the dots as a streak. The dots are evidence, not points. A week with two heavy days isn't worse than a week of fives, just the week that happened.
- Writing sentences on the note line. The line is sized for three words on purpose. If a day needs a paragraph, that paragraph belongs in long-form journaling, not on the strip.
Variations and related templates
If the weekly two-dot strip isn't quite what you wanted:
- Mood journal template, the writing-first cousin, one full page per day with a rating field and a one-line note. Slower but holds more context.
- Mood diary, a clinician-friendly format with sleep, medication, and symptom columns. The right choice if you're bringing pages to a psychiatry appointment.
- Mood tracker examples, three filled-in weeks side by side, so you can see what an honest column of dots looks like before you start your own.
For the days a single feeling word doesn't fit, pair the strip with a feelings journal. For the long view on when and why this practice works, our complete mood journaling guide covers the full layered system.
FAQ
Where do I download the template?
The PDF is a free one-click download from the hero above. No email, no signup. Print one sheet per week, or print a small stack at the start of the month.
Why morning and evening instead of one rating a day?
A single daily rating averages out swings that matter. The morning dot captures how you started; the evening dot captures where the day landed. The two together show drift, whether the day was a rescue, a slide, or held steady.
How is this different from a monthly mood tracker?
A monthly tracker shows the shape of thirty days at a glance, better for noticing the bigger arc. The daily strip gives you more room per day and the morning-versus-evening signal, but only a week per page. Use the strip when you want the texture; use a monthly grid when you want the trend.
Do I have to do it every day?
No. Five out of seven days for a month beats seven for two weeks and then nothing. Leave a blank row when you miss one, do not back-fill from memory the next morning. Empty rows are real data; invented ones are not.
Can I add a sleep or medication column?
Yes, but only if you actually track one of them. The narrow strip on the right side of the page is sized to hold one extra column, sleep hours, a medication tick, or a one-letter habit code. Adding three columns makes the page heavy and you'll start skipping nights.
Not medical advice. Mood tracking is a self-reflective practice, not a diagnosis or treatment. If you're in crisis in the US, call or text 988. If you're concerned about your mental health, talk to a licensed clinician.