> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.getrivet.ca/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Mood diary > A sub-twenty-second daily mood capture — slider, optional sleep, optional context. Daily mood tracking is one of the most useful and lowest-cost data sources in depression and behavioral activation work. The mood diary in Rivet is designed for friction-low capture: a 0-10 slider, optional hours of sleep, optional free-text context. Most clients fill it in under twenty seconds. No total score, no severity band. The clinical signal lives in the trend over time — patterns the client and practitioner read together at the weekly review. ## What it captures Four fields, all optional: * **Date** — defaults to today * **How you're feeling** — 0-10 slider, low → great * **Hours of sleep last night** — decimal, optional * **Anything notable today** — textarea, optional The sleep field is included because mood and sleep are entangled in most depression presentations, and clients often connect bad nights to next-day low mood without prompting. The context field exists so the client can pin the rating to something concrete (*productive morning, afternoon energy crash*) which makes the weekly review more diagnostic. ## Why a single global mood rather than per-emotion sliders The friction-low design is the point. A sub-twenty-second worksheet gets filled every day. A two-minute worksheet gets filled three times a week and then abandoned. A few clients benefit from finer-grained emotion tracking (per-emotion sliders, mood + anxiety + energy split). For those clients, the underlying intervention is the conversation about what's being missed by a global rating — and you can supplement the mood diary with notes in the context field naming the specific emotion. The single-slider design holds. ## When to use it * **Foundational homework in CBT and BA.** Standard care for depression treatment for the past fifty years. * **Daily, ideally same time each day.** Bedtime is the most common time because the day is over and the rating reflects the whole day rather than the moment. * **Reviewed weekly with the practitioner**, especially in the first 4-8 weeks of treatment when patterns are emerging. Often continues across the whole treatment course. * **In-session as a quick check-in opener.** *How's the mood the last few days?* — the client looks at their week of entries and the answer is data rather than memory. ## How the weekly review tends to work The most useful patterns from a week of mood diary entries: * **Day-of-week patterns.** Mondays consistently low, Fridays consistently high — points at work or weekday structure. * **Sleep coupling.** Days following \< 6 hours of sleep that are systematically lower — points at sleep as a treatment target. Pair with the [sleep diary](/clinical-templates/cbt/sleep-diary) for CBT-I. * **Activity coupling.** When the context field mentions specific activities, the activities present on high-mood days inform behavioral activation scheduling. Pair with the [activity check-in](/clinical-templates/cbt/activity-check-in). * **The flat-line pattern.** Several days in a row of 4 or 5 with no variability — clinically distinctive. Either the client is at a stable low baseline (treatment target) or the client is rating without engaging (worksheet target). ## In-session mechanics Open **Mood diary** from the top-right corner (**Clinical templates ▾**). Fill it during the session opener as a quick read-and-rate (*how was yesterday, zero to ten?*) or review the client's homework entries by reopening prior responses from the client's record. The entry copies to clipboard for paste into session notes. ## Citation No single inventor — daily mood tracking is generic published clinical method. Foundational references: * Lewinsohn, P. M. (1974). "A behavioral approach to depression." In R. J. Friedman & M. M. Katz (Eds.), *The Psychology of Depression.* * Burns, D. D. (1980). *Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy.* The "Daily Mood Log" worksheet. Daily mood tracking has been standard care in CBT and behavioral activation for over fifty years. The concept is uncopyrightable. Field labels and plain-language phrasing are original to Rivet. ## When not to use it * **Clients who find daily self-rating activating or shame-inducing.** A small number of clients (often with severe self-criticism or perfectionism) find the daily rating itself becomes the target of harsh self-judgment. If the worksheet is making the cycle worse, drop it. * **Bipolar mood logging.** Bipolar tracking benefits from a different worksheet that captures mood, energy, sleep, and medication adherence together. The single-slider mood diary undersamples manic and mixed states. * **Acute crisis monitoring.** The mood diary is a treatment-progress tool, not a risk-flagging surface. Use the [C-SSRS](/clinical-templates/clinician-administered/c-ssrs) for suicide risk and the [safety plan](/clinical-templates/crisis/safety-plan) for crisis-period work. ## Related articles Paired with mood tracking in behavioral activation. For days when sleep is the variable to isolate. The validated 2-week severity instrument that pairs with daily tracking.