# Using Moodscope for mood tracking **URL:** \ **Category:** Life\ **Created:** [June 23, 2018, 10:20am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/using-moodscope-for-mood-tracking/4007 "2018-06-23T10:20:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dehowell](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dehowell/32/867_2.png) [@dehowell](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dehowell)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 10:20am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/using-moodscope-for-mood-tracking/4007/1 "2018-06-23T10:20:01Z")
I’ve been using [Moodscope](https://www.moodscope.com) to track my mood for the last year. This is the only quantified-self approach to tracking my emotional state that I’ve found long-term worthwhile[1]. Most other apps that support mood tracking just as “How was your day?” and ask you to rate 1-5 on a classic Likert scale. That kind of prompt seems to prime for the outside view of my life. I implicitly substitute “How was your day?” with the questions “Am I alive, healthy, employed?” and then stoically answer 3 _every day_, while missing macro trends towards [what Venkatesh Rao calls “failed reality maintenance”](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/05/29/reality-maintenance/). Instead, Moodscope presents a panel of 20 specific emotions and asks you to rate how much you identify with each from 0 to 3. The increased specificity has helped me catch problematic ruts in my state-of-mind, at the cost of 1-3 minutes of my morning routine[2]. If I consistently rate “irritable” above 0, I know I had better focus on sleep hygiene and more exercise. If “hostile” is trending, I had better do some journalling and reframe whatever family or work situations are on my mind. This is my last year of ratings: ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/beeminder/original/2X/7/75b542d16e66de2296f9f4337a93c4a0549a66e7.png) The folks behind Moodscope have been running it on the side for 10 years, but they have a [crowdfunding campaign](https://www.moodscope.com/crowdpatch/crowdfunding) going right now to fund improvements to the interface. Please give it a try and [consider supporting them](https://www.moodscope.com/crowdpatch/crowdfunding). [1] I found Moodscope via [Alex Vermeer’s excellent “Life Hacking” page](https://alexvermeer.com/life-hacking/). He has since removed the reference to Moodscope (I’m not sure why), but he has plenty of other good tips. [2] I have “take mood inventory” in [my Complice dailies](http://complice.co) and _of course_ I keep myself accountable for doing it with Beeminder. ---
**Author:** ![lanthala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@lanthala](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/lanthala)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 5:53pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/using-moodscope-for-mood-tracking/4007/2 "2018-06-23T17:53:32Z")
I agree that a single linear scale is unhelpful; even if you’re not judging by an extremely low bar, it’s just hard to collapse so many different emotions into a single number. And that single number’s not going to be all that helpful for troubleshooting moods later – a week of being really angry is different from a week of being really sad, which is different from a week of sometimes being angry and sometimes being sad. I found Clue (a period/fertility tracker) simpler to Moodscape but similarly helpful for figuring out my mood patterns; it has 4 binary moods you can pick (you can pick as many as you want): happy, sad, sensitive, and angry. It’s obviously focused on identifying hormonal mood effects, but I found it useful enough to be able to say “did I experience these emotions strongly today?” instead of trying to rate my day overall. (And of course, yes, I beeminded “Fill out Clue” every day"!) ---
**Author:** ![adamwolf](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/adamwolf/32/484_2.png) [@adamwolf](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/adamwolf)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 7:56pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/using-moodscope-for-mood-tracking/4007/3 "2018-06-23T19:56:51Z")
I’ve been using Daylio but this looks way nicer for what I want! Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![dehowell](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dehowell/32/867_2.png) [@dehowell](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dehowell)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 12:12am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/using-moodscope-for-mood-tracking/4007/4 "2018-06-24T00:12:56Z")
I should clarify that the chart up above is _not_ from the Moodscope user interface; I made that with R and [ggplot2](https://ggplot2.tidyverse.org) from a CSV export of my tracking data. They _do_ have similar visualization, but only for the last 30 days of data. ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/beeminder/original/2X/5/59575a6838c78a5678e6f7c9e910280eedd784e5.png) Moodscope also generates a composite mood score (on a 0-100 scale) from the mood panel. It’s still a linear scale, but because I’m not rating on that scale _directly_ it manages to be more useful and representative of my emotional well-being. ---
**Author:** ![adamwolf](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/adamwolf/32/484_2.png) [@adamwolf](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/adamwolf)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 1:34pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/using-moodscope-for-mood-tracking/4007/5 "2018-06-29T13:34:34Z")
I ended up making a PANAS Google Form. I’m going to code up a little Google Apps Script to email me my score when I submit. ---
**Author:** ![tjb](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/tjb/32/1150_2.png) [@tjb](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/tjb)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2018, 10:48am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/using-moodscope-for-mood-tracking/4007/6 "2018-07-11T10:48:31Z")
I wish it were possible to track my feelings automatically, and alert me when I need to go take a deep breath. (The food industry tracks microemtions in product development.) ---
**Author:** ![dehowell](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dehowell/32/867_2.png) [@dehowell](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dehowell)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2018, 11:09am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/using-moodscope-for-mood-tracking/4007/7 "2018-07-11T11:09:21Z")
Haven’t tried it myself, but I think that’s the premise of [the Spire stress tracker](https://spire.io/products/stone). ---
**Author:** ![alars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ba0ec/32.png) [@alars](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/alars)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 11:42am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/using-moodscope-for-mood-tracking/4007/8 "2018-11-19T11:42:30Z")
Hey, could you share your google form and script setup? I’m interested in setting something up along those lines too. ---
**Author:** ![apolyton](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/apolyton/32/1965_2.png) [@apolyton](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/apolyton)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 12:38pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/using-moodscope-for-mood-tracking/4007/9 "2018-11-19T12:38:07Z")
I’ve been using Gyroscope [https://gyrosco.pe/](https://gyrosco.pe/) which has a similar feature minus the 1-5 scale. You’re presented with some mood states and are asked to give a yes/no answer (on swipe left/right tinder-style) for each of them. The app calculates a score from your answers. You then have weekly / monthly graphs of your result. ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/beeminder/original/2X/2/2e12b96704e1dce694d5362de2cf33a7e1cf48b5.jpeg) ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/beeminder/original/2X/4/4ac8e74ea81db21ec61298cb7398184c5d23dc26.jpeg) ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/beeminder/original/2X/0/0a93b059d2bebbd847d3f6416be881c92bf70a32.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![adamwolf](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/adamwolf/32/484_2.png) [@adamwolf](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/adamwolf)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 1:47pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/using-moodscope-for-mood-tracking/4007/10 "2018-11-19T13:47:35Z")
I never ended up making a Google Apps Script for it, since I really just wanted the graph in Google Sheets. If you make a copy of this Google Sheet, [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11ssj5EVT5bq3qw\_79DkOb3TyRpb\_futWJwEtIKiI\_mo/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11ssj5EVT5bq3qw_79DkOb3TyRpb_futWJwEtIKiI_mo/edit?usp=sharing), you can then go to Form -\> Edit Form and it should give you a copy with all the questions set up. ---
**Author:** ![alars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ba0ec/32.png) [@alars](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/alars)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 4:03pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/using-moodscope-for-mood-tracking/4007/11 "2018-11-19T16:03:17Z")
Hm, for some reason it didn’t work but that’s alright, I can set up a 20 question questionnaire myself. Thanks a lot for the help Adam! ---
**Author:** ![alars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ba0ec/32.png) [@alars](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/alars)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 4:06pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/using-moodscope-for-mood-tracking/4007/12 "2018-11-19T16:06:41Z")
Oh, that’s interesting. I really don’t want to get started with another QS app any time soon however, since I’m busy enough figuring out and implementing the ones I already have as it is. So I’ll leave Gyroscope at that and make a note to check it out sometime later. Thanks for the suggestion! P.S. Are you Greek? ---
**Author:** ![apolyton](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/apolyton/32/1965_2.png) [@apolyton](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/apolyton)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 11:16pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/using-moodscope-for-mood-tracking/4007/13 "2018-11-19T23:16:39Z")
> [@alars](#): > > Are you Greek? What gave it away? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![alars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ba0ec/32.png) [@alars](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/alars)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2018, 12:41pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/using-moodscope-for-mood-tracking/4007/14 "2018-11-21T12:41:06Z")
The surname, I suppose. Our surnames are rather unmistakable.