New Year's Eve is my favorite holiday. I love a designated time to look forward and to reflect back, ideally while getting tipsy with friends. The turn of a new year is also a time when Im grateful for my habit of writing down every little thingand I dont just mean getting my thoughts and feelings down in a journal. Im talking about tracking every book read, every mile run, and every beer crushed (approximately). So if youre interested in documenting your lifeand you should be!I highly recommend using a wonderfully detailed spreadsheet.Im not talking about bullet journaling (which can be cool, but which I find too artistically daunting). I simply create a Google sheet full of different color-coded tabs so that I can track any number of ways to measure a year. From the most thorough travel plans to elaborate to-do lists, if you have a goal, that goal needs a spreadsheet tab. Its a fun, slightly nerdy technique that helps me visualize my life in a way that traditional journaling cant. Heres why I think this year, you should start your own spreadsheet to track all the little things in your life.How to turn anything into a trackable achievementThe spreadsheet journal is perfect for us freaks who like to combine sentimentalism with statistics. Whatever metrics you choose to jot down, you can frame them around a sense of accomplishment. Your smart watch can track how many steps youve taken. A spreadsheet journal, however, is where you can appreciate how many steps youve achieved. From there, you can have fun with the numbers, converting those steps into miles or finding patterns over time or in whatever suits your nerdy brain. Go wild. Create different tabs dedicated to different areas of your life, so you can appreciate how much you have going on. Ill throw around some ideas in the next section, but at the end of the day, a spreadsheet is a low-effort, high-reward alternative to trying to use your words all the time, so dont get too caught up in the details. The technique is really about recognizing the value in every little number that defines your life.How to create your tracking spreadsheetFirst things first: Choose your spreadsheet software. I opt for the ease of Google Sheets, but I understand you might have some privacy concerns there. Or maybe youre simply a master at Excel. For some formatting ideas, check out this post on creating the ultimate travel spreadsheet. The main takeaway is to create one master file with as many different tabs as you see fit. Include tabs tracking your health/fitness goals, books/movies/TV youve consumed, your finances/budgeting, and whatever else is significant to you:Hours sleptMiles walkedConcerts attendedMovies watchedBooks startedBooks finished Dates gone onPlaces traveledGifts givenThank you notes sentTime spent in trafficPlaylists createdMake sure you include a column for adding notes to your entriessome personal commentary to spice up the statistics.How to maximize your spreadsheetYou can dedicate a column in each tab for jotting down miscellaneous notes, but for the sake of tidiness, make sure not to overfill your boxes with text. It also helps to stay consistent with your formattinge.g. bolding the header of each metric. I color code at whim. For instance, as a stand-up comedian, I keep track of all my shows with a specific color to mark how I felt about them: Shades of green mean the show went well, and shades of red mean the show...did not go well. In times where it looks like everything in my life is red, its nice to be able to shift my gaze to all the green, too. Perspective!At the end of the year, youll be able to use all that data to visualize both the big and the little things in your life over the 12 months prior. At a glance, youll be able to pat yourself on the back for how successfully you cut back on caffeine, or upped your time outdoors, or improved your books-started to books-completed ratio. Ultimately, my own spreadsheet is about appreciating all the little things in my life, even if I do so in one of the nerdiest ways imaginable.