Hey almondjoy (which is among my top 3 candy bars, btw)! I recently re-started charting too. You ask a really good question!

Like MM, I made up my own, because of not finding a good fit out there. I'll see if I can figure a way to get it onto the computer. It's currently a pencil and ruler affair (then run copies at the library). It's got a lot of info, but still pretty easy to quickly see what's going on. Like you, I found myself thinking, there's too much glommed together here. And where am I supposed to put this relevant info?!

Recording them as separate entities is one solution. On mine, mood and irritability each have their own rating area. As does anxiety. These 3 are in graph format, so you can quickly look at the dots to see the big patterns. The other areas are for things that would be considered "possible contributing factors". So…. work, sleep times and number of hours, med amounts, and a space for general comments. A lot of times, I'll just write what happened that day, like "grocery" "cleaned kitchen" etc. Which might seem weird, but honestly? It's the only way I would have a clue what day we were talking about(!) I often can't remember by that very night what happened(!) ("Was that today or yesterday? What? That was last week?!" Lol.)

Separating them let me assess mood not only in terms of how I felt, but more importantly, where the energy level was, because that's what really tells the tale (imo). Having to integrate the irritability factor into an overall mood rating was exasperating. (Which made me irritable. Haha.)

(Oh! And there's a place for sleep/wake issues, that's a biggie. That one's color coded.)