A trade journal you will actually keep

Seven fields

Record these for every trade, at the moment you enter and exit, not from memory at the end of the week:

• Setup — the name of the pattern or reason for the trade, from a short fixed list.
• Entry, stop and target — the plan, written before the order is placed.
• Risk — the amount at risk, which defines 1R for this trade.
• Exit — the price and the reason: stop, target or a rule.
• Result in R — for example +1.6R or −1R.
• Rules followed? — yes or no, with one word on what broke.
• Screenshot — the chart at entry and at exit.

The weekly review

Once a week, sort trades by setup and add up the results in R. Illustrative example: after 20 trades, setup A shows +4.8R over 12 trades (+0.4R each) and setup B shows −2.4R over 8 trades (−0.3R each). The useful question is not whether you won the week, but which setup earns its place.

• Which setup has positive expectancy, and over how many trades?
• How many losses came from breaking a rule rather than from the setup?
• Did any single trade risk more than planned?

Make it fast to fill in

A journal you skip on busy days is worse than a short one you always complete. Three habits help:

• Use a fixed template — a spreadsheet or a note with the same seven fields every time, so nothing has to be decided in the moment.
• Fill in the plan before the order — entry, stop, target and risk take a minute to write and stop you from improvising.
• Close the entry the same day — exit, result and screenshot while the trade is still fresh in your mind.

Keep it honest

Log every trade, including the impulsive ones you would rather forget; they are often where the costs hide. Twenty trades is a small sample, so treat early numbers as hints and keep collecting before drawing firm conclusions.

When a review suggests a change, change one thing at a time — a rule, a setup, the risk per trade — and keep logging. Otherwise you cannot tell which change made the difference.