Year in Pixels: one color for every day of the year

How a Year in Pixels works

Tintle's year view has twelve columns for months and 31 rows for days. You choose a color key and fill one square at the end of each day. The first Year in Pixels tracked mood in five colors, from happiest to least happy. It came out of bullet journaling and spread on Pinterest and Instagram. It asks for almost no effort: no sentences, no scores, one color.

Three rules make it work:

1. Rate the whole day, not the last hour. Ask yourself "how was today overall?"
2. Keep the key fixed. Changing what green means in April breaks the comparison with March.
3. Leave missed days blank. Days you fill in from memory a week later are less reliable than same-day ones. An empty square is fine.

What you can track besides mood

Mood is the original use, but the grid works for anything with a daily answer. Energy level, anxiety, sleep quality, time outside, water and movement all make readable grids. Binary habits (did I walk today?) work too: use one color for done and leave the square empty for not done.

Tracking two things side by side is where it gets interesting. Put a mood grid next to a movement grid and check whether the good days line up. You can keep 3 trackers for free and as many as you like with Pro. Pick scales from our 12 color keys.

Paper or app?

A paper grid is satisfying to color and easy to start. It gets harder in the details: drawing the grid, carrying the notebook, and starting mid-year. Here is how the two compare.

How to keep a Year in Pixels in Tintle

1. Open Tintle and create your own Mood tracker, or pick a ready tracker from Inspiration, such as Anxiety or Water.
2. Start today. To count the year from your first day instead of January 1, turn off Linked to Calendar in the tracker's settings.
3. Choose a Format: Month, Quarter or Year.
4. Pick a palette. Its three shades run from less to more, and that order is your key.
5. Each evening, tap today's color. Add a note if something stood out.

How to read your year

Give it at least four weeks before drawing conclusions. Then look for:

• Weekday rhythm. Are Mondays a shade lower? Look at what usually fills your Mondays.
• Clusters. When you see a run of low days, check what was going on: deadlines, travel, illness or short winter days.
• Recovery speed. How many days does it take to get back to your usual color after a bad one?
• Seasons. A full year shows whether winter months really are darker for you.

A pixel grid is a reflection tool, not a diagnosis. If your mood squares have sat at the low end of your key on most days for two weeks or more, talk to a doctor or a mental health professional.