How to keep a trading journal (and actually stick with it)
Most trading journals die in the second week. Not because the trader is lazy, but because they log too much, review nothing, and never get anything back for the effort. Here's how I teach students to keep one: a few fields per trade, written the same day, and one short review a week that tells you what to fix.
The short version
Write every trade the same day, with the same handful of fields: what you planned, what you did, whether you followed your rules, and the one mistake if there was one. Then once a week, add up what each mistake cost and pick one to fix. A journal that never gets reviewed is just a list of trades.
- You only write in it after a bad day
- Each entry is a paragraph about how you felt
- You've never added up what a mistake cost you
- You can't say what you're working on this week
- Every trade is in it, winners and losers, written the same day
- Each entry says whether you followed your plan, yes or no
- You know your most expensive mistake in dollars
- You have one thing to fix this week, and you can check it
Why most trading journals get abandoned
- Too many fields. If logging a trade takes ten minutes, you'll skip it on the busy days, which are exactly the days you need it.
- Only bad days get written. Then the journal shows your worst self and none of the patterns behind your good days.
- Nothing comes back. Writing is the cost, reviewing is the payoff. Most people pay the cost and never collect.
- It's all feelings. "Felt frustrated, need to be more patient" can't be measured, so next month looks the same.
Fix those four and a journal stops feeling like homework. It becomes the place where you find out what's actually costing you money.
What to write for every trade
Split it into two parts. The facts, which your platform already knows, and your judgement, which only you can add. Import or copy the facts; spend your time on the judgement.
| Field | Example | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Date and time | Tue 09:42 | Shows when you trade well and when you don't |
| Market and direction | NQ long | Separates what works on each market |
| Size | 2 contracts | Catches sizing up after losses |
| Entry, stop, exit | 30,450 / 30,440 / 30,472 | Lets you work out R and check the stop was honoured |
| Result | +$880 | Facts. Your platform has this already |
| Setup | Opening range break | So you can see which setups actually pay |
| Followed the plan? | Yes / no | The single most useful field in any journal |
| Grade | B | How well you executed, separate from P&L |
| Mistake | Moved stop | One name per mistake, always the same words |
| Screenshot | Chart at exit | What you saw, not what you remember seeing |
Use the same mistake names every time. "Moved stop", "chased entry", "traded outside hours", "sized up after a loss". If you write it differently each day you can't count it, and counting is the whole point.
Emotions are worth one word, not a paragraph. "Rushed", "bored", "angry". After a month you'll see which word shows up next to your biggest losers.
When to write it
- Before the session: a short plan. Which markets, which levels, which setups you'll take, your max loss for the day. Five lines is enough.
- During the session: nothing, or one word if something happens. Journaling mid-trade pulls you off the chart.
- Right after the session: every trade, while you still remember why you took it. Ten minutes. Not tonight, not on Sunday.
- Once a week: the review. This is where the journal pays you back.
An example entry
Two lines each. The second one is the one that matters: a good day turned into a red day by a trade that was never in the plan. Without the journal it's just "a bad Tuesday". With it, it's a pattern you can count.
The 20 minute weekly review
- Split the week's trades into followed-the-plan and didn't. Add up the P&L of each group separately.
- Add up what each mistake cost in dollars. Sort by the biggest number.
- Look at your three worst trades. Was it the setup, or was it you?
- Pick one thing to fix next week, the most expensive mistake. Write it as a rule with a number in it.
- Next week, check that one thing first.
The first step is the eye-opener for most traders. The trades where they followed their plan are often fine. The losses come from a handful of trades that broke it. That's good news: it's a behaviour to fix, not a strategy to throw away.
Notebook, spreadsheet or app?
Any of them works if you use it every day. A notebook is great for the plan and the one-word notes, bad at adding things up. A spreadsheet adds things up but you type every trade in by hand. Our free trading journal template does the grading and the mistake costs for you if you want to start there.
An app imports the facts from your platform so you only add the judgement. That's the trade-off: a few minutes saved every day, and a weekly review that's already done. The best trading journal apps guide compares the main ones honestly.
How Actal handles it
I built Actal around exactly this routine. You write a premarket plan, import the day's trades from your platform, and grade each one with your mistakes picked from your own list. Every trade is checked against your rules automatically, every mistake gets a dollar cost, and the weekly review hands you the one thing to fix. It's free while in beta.
Who wrote this
I'm Joakim. I trade index futures full time and coach traders one-on-one at Jusell Trading Academy. Every student I coach keeps a journal this way, and the weekly review is where most of our sessions start.
Questions people ask
Drop in one export. In a minute Actal grades the trades it can, prices the mistakes you tagged, and tells you the first thing to fix. Free during beta, no card.
Full-time index futures trader. Coaches traders one-on-one at Jusell Trading Academy, five students at a time, since 2020. No platform was built for developing traders, so he had his own coaching software built; old students loved it and kept coming back, and Actal is that software turned into a proper journal for what matters.