Your Digital Diary: Making a Spreadsheet Journal

Imagine you had the most amazing day and you want to remember it forever. A diary helps you do that! Some people write diaries in notebooks. But did you know you can keep a diary on a computer too? Think about this: if you had 30 days of diary entries, which would be easier to search through — a paper notebook or a computer file? Today you are going to find out how a spreadsheet can become your digital diary.

A spreadsheet is a computer program that organises information into a grid of rows and columns. Think of it like a table with lots of boxes. Each box is called a cell. Cells are where you type your information. To make a diary in a spreadsheet, you need to decide what to record each day. A good diary has a Date, a Mood, and a Description of what happened. Here is how to set it up: 1. Open your spreadsheet program (for example, Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel). 2. Click on cell A1 — this is the first cell in the top-left corner. Type 'Date' here. This is your first column heading. 3. Click on cell B1. Type 'Mood'. This is your second column heading. 4. Click on cell C1. Type 'What Happened Today'. This is your third column heading. 5. Now move to row 2. In cell A2, type today's date — for example, 15 June 2025. 6. In cell B2, type a word for your mood, like 'Happy' or 'Excited'. 7. In cell C2, type one or two sentences about your day. 8. Each new day, you move down to the next row and fill in the same columns. Using the same columns every day means your diary stays neat and easy to read. You can scroll down to find any day you want. You can even make the headings bold so they stand out.