It started as a single bullet journal page and has since spread into spreadsheets, apps, and printable grids — but the core idea hasn’t changed. This guide covers what a Year in Pixels tracker actually is, where the name came from, exactly how to build your own grid, and a free template you can start filling in today.

Download the Free Year in Pixels Template

Our own printable — free, no sign-up, no email required. 12 months × 31 days with a seven-mood color key and space for notes. Portrait US Letter (prints fine on A4).

Year in Pixels Mood Tracker (PDF)

Quick Answer

A Year in Pixels tracker is a 12-column (one per month) by 31-row (one per possible day) grid where you color in one box a day to represent your overall mood, using a 5-7 color key you define ahead of time. Build it on paper, in a spreadsheet, or in an app — you can start on any date, not just January 1st.

What Is a Year in Pixels Tracker, and Where Did It Come From?

The name describes exactly what you end up with: a grid of 365 colored squares that looks like a pixelated image when you squint at it from across the room, except each “pixel” is a real day and a real mood instead of a picture. It’s a bullet-journal-style habit tracker, but instead of checking a box for yes/no, you pick one color from a key you design yourself.

The format is usually credited to Camille, a French bullet journaler who posts as @passion.carnets, who created it in December 2015. She’d been inspired by Tim Urban’s “Your Life in Weeks” essay on the blog Wait But Why and started asking herself a simpler question: how many days a year was she actually happy? Her original version used five colors — red, orange, yellow, green, and blue — rating each day as a whole rather than logging separate emotions. The idea spread quickly through the bullet journal community, and the name, format, and 12-by-31 layout have stayed essentially the same ever since, whether people draw it by hand, build it in a spreadsheet, or generate it automatically in an app.

Free Year in Pixels Template

The template included with this guide uses the standard 12-column, 31-row layout — one column per month, one row per possible day of the month — plus a seven-color mood key printed along the top so you don’t have to redraw it from memory every January. There’s also a small notes strip at the bottom of each month for jotting down what was happening during a run of similar-colored days. It’s sized for portrait US Letter and prints cleanly on A4 as well, so one page per printout covers a full page of the grid regardless of your printer’s default paper size.

Because the grid is just columns and rows, the same layout works whether you print it, tape it into a bullet journal, or recreate it in Google Sheets or Excel using colored cells instead of ink — the numbers (12 columns, 31 rows, 5-7 colors) don’t change based on format.

Step-by-Step: Building Your Grid

Start with the layout. The most common version uses 12 columns across the top (January through December) and 31 rows down the side (day 1 through day 31), since that covers every possible date even in longer months. Some people flip this and use rows for months and columns for days — either works, so pick whichever fits your notebook or spreadsheet better.

You don’t need perfectly square boxes. Rectangles are fine, and a ruler helps keep lines clean if you’re drawing by hand. In a notebook, this typically takes up one or two full pages; in a spreadsheet, you can build it in a few minutes using merged or colored cells. If you’d rather skip drawing entirely, recreate this same 12-by-31 layout in Google Sheets or Excel: label the columns with month names, the rows 1-31, and use cell fill colors for your mood key.

Choosing Your Mood Key and Coloring Each Day

Before you fill in a single box, decide on your mood key — the set of colors that will represent how you feel. Somewhere between 5 and 7 moods is usually the sweet spot: enough to capture nuance (great, good, okay, low, rough) without making the daily choice overwhelming. Write the key somewhere visible, like the top or side of the grid, so you don’t have to re-decide the color scheme every day.

Pick colors that are easy to tell apart at a glance, since the whole point is spotting patterns across the year. A common approach is warmer or brighter colors for better moods and cooler or darker colors for harder days, but any consistent system works as long as you can distinguish each shade quickly. Each day, choose one color that best represents your overall mood and fill in that day’s box. If you genuinely can’t decide between two moods, it’s fine to split the box diagonally and use both colors rather than agonizing over a single choice. Try pairing the habit with something you already do daily — coloring it in with your morning coffee or as part of a nightly wind-down makes it much easier to stick with for a full year.

Paper, Spreadsheet, or App: Picking Your Format

There are three realistic ways to keep a Year in Pixels tracker. Paper — either a hand-drawn bullet journal spread or a printed template like the one attached to this guide — keeps the habit tactile and forces a quick daily glance. A spreadsheet in Google Sheets or Excel is the fastest to set up and the easiest to filter or color-sort later if you want to count how many “good” days you had in a given month. Dedicated mood-tracking apps remove the coloring step entirely: you log a mood from a short menu, and the app renders the Year-in-Pixels-style chart for you automatically, often with reminders built in.

None of these is objectively better — the one that matters is whichever you’ll still be using in month ten. Paper and spreadsheets both survive a phone upgrade or an app going away; an app adds convenience but ties your year of data to that one platform, so it’s worth checking whether it lets you export your history before you commit to it.

Year in Pixels Variations: Tracking More Than Mood

The grid itself — 12 columns, 31 rows — doesn’t actually have anything to do with mood specifically; mood is just what the original 2015 version tracked. People have since adapted the exact same layout for sleep quality, weather, pain or symptom levels, gratitude, or a simple habit streak where each box is just filled or left blank.

A popular way to get more out of it is to run two or three thin grids side by side — mood plus sleep, for example, or mood plus a single habit you’re building — so you can visually line up a rough patch in one grid with what was happening in the other at the same time. The setup cost is identical to a single grid; you’re just duplicating the rows and giving each strip its own short key.

Tips and Common Mistakes

Don’t wait for January 1st. You can start a Year in Pixels tracker any day of the year — just begin on today’s date and keep going for the next 365 days.

Avoid overcomplicating the mood key. Adding too many colors (10+) makes daily entries harder and muddies the patterns you’re trying to see later. Keep it simple enough that you could explain your key to someone else in one sentence.

Review the grid regularly instead of only at year’s end. A quick monthly glance helps you catch a stretch of low days early and connect it to what was happening in your life at the time — travel, work deadlines, a change in sleep, and so on.

If you miss a day, just leave it blank or fill it in retroactively with your best guess — don’t let one gap stop you from continuing. The value of the tracker comes from the overall pattern, not a perfect unbroken streak.

Photos

Year in Pixels FAQs

What is a Year in Pixels mood tracker?

It’s a bullet-journal-style grid with a box for every day of the year, where you color each box a different shade to represent that day’s overall mood, creating a visual map of your emotional patterns over time.

Who created the Year in Pixels tracker?

The format is generally credited to Camille (@passion.carnets), a French bullet journaler who created it in December 2015 after being inspired by Tim Urban’s “Your Life in Weeks” essay. Her original version used five colors to rate each day’s overall mood as a whole.

How many moods should I track?

Most people use between 5 and 7 mood categories. That’s usually enough range to capture real variation without making the daily color choice feel complicated.

Can I make a Year in Pixels tracker digitally instead of on paper?

Yes. You can recreate the same 12-column, 31-row grid in a spreadsheet like Google Sheets using colored cells, or use a dedicated mood-tracking app that offers a Year in Pixels-style chart view.

Do I have to start on January 1st?

No. You can start a Year in Pixels tracker on any date — just begin with today and continue filling in one box per day going forward.

What if I forget to color in a day?

Leave the box blank or fill it in later based on your best recollection. A missed day or two doesn’t undermine the tracker — the value comes from the overall pattern across months, not a perfect streak.

Can I use Year in Pixels for something other than mood?

Yes. The same 12-by-31 grid works for sleep quality, weather, pain or symptom levels, gratitude, or a simple habit streak — only the color key changes, not the layout.

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