You have a trading system. Rules for entry, exit, and position sizing. But how do you know if it's actually working? How do you improve it?
The answer is the same tool every professional trader uses: a trading journal. Not a diary of feelings - a systematic record that turns your trading into data.
Here's how to build one that actually matters.
Why Most Journals Fail
Most traders who try journaling quit within a month. Why?
Too much friction: Writing paragraphs after every trade isn't sustainable. If it takes 10 minutes to log a trade, you'll stop logging.
Wrong information: Recording how you "felt" about a trade tells you nothing actionable. You need data, not therapy.
No review process: A journal you never analyze is just busy work. The value comes from patterns discovered during review.
The solution: design a journal for minimum input and maximum insight.
What to Track: The Essentials
Every trade needs these data points. No exceptions.
Trade basics:
- Date and time of entry
- Symbol/instrument
- Direction (long/short)
- Entry price
- Stop loss price
- Target price(s)
- Position size
Trade outcome:
- Exit price
- Exit date/time
- P&L in dollars
- P&L in R (multiples of risk)
- Exit reason (target hit, stopped out, manual exit, time stop)
Setup classification:
- Setup type (breakout, pullback, reversal, etc.)
- Timeframe
- Market conditions (trending, ranging, volatile)
This is your core data. Takes 60 seconds to log if you use a spreadsheet or dedicated tool.
What to Track: The Edge Finders
Beyond basics, track factors that might reveal edge. You won't know which matter until you have data.
Context factors:
- Day of week
- Time of day (market session)
- Days since last trade
- Current drawdown level
- Consecutive wins/losses before this trade
Technical factors:
- Higher timeframe trend direction
- Distance from key levels
- Volume relative to average
- Number of confluent signals
Execution factors:
- Slippage on entry
- Did you follow your rules exactly? (Yes/No)
- Did you adjust size? (Up/Down/Normal)
- Screenshot saved? (Yes/No)
Many of these are binary or dropdown selections - fast to log, powerful to analyze.
The Screenshot System
Numbers tell part of the story. Charts tell the rest.
For every trade, save two screenshots:
- Entry screenshot: Chart at the moment of entry, showing your setup and marked entry/stop/target
- Exit screenshot: Chart at exit, showing how the trade developed
Name them consistently: YYYYMMDD_SYMBOL_Direction_Result.png
Example: 20241215_AAPL_Long_Win.png
During review, these screenshots reveal patterns numbers can't capture: "My breakout trades fail when volume is declining on the breakout bar" - you'd never notice this from pure statistics.
Weekly Review Process
The journal creates data. Review extracts value.
Every week, analyze:
Performance metrics:
- Total P&L
- Win rate
- Average winner vs average loser
- Largest winner and loser
- Expectancy per trade
Pattern analysis:
- Which setup types performed best/worst?
- Which days/times produced best results?
- How did trades perform in different market conditions?
- Did rule-following trades outperform rule-breaking trades?
Execution review:
- How many trades followed rules exactly?
- What caused rule breaks?
- Any patterns in losing trades?
Weekly review takes 30-60 minutes. This is where trading improvement actually happens.
Monthly Deep Dive
Once a month, go deeper.
Statistical significance:
- Do you have enough trades to draw conclusions? (Minimum 30 for any subset)
- Are patterns consistent across different market conditions?
System adjustments:
- Should any setup types be eliminated?
- Should position sizing rules change?
- Are there times/conditions to avoid?
Edge evolution:
- Is your edge growing, stable, or declining?
- What's changed in the market?
- What's changed in your execution?
Document findings. Create action items. Implement changes one at a time.
The Minimum Viable Journal
Starting simple is better than not starting. Here's the bare minimum:
Spreadsheet with columns:
- Date
- Symbol
- Direction
- Entry
- Exit
- P&L
- Setup Type
- Followed Rules (Y/N)
- Notes (one line max)
That's it. Nine columns. Takes 30 seconds per trade.
Once this habit is established, add more fields. But consistency beats completeness. A simple journal you actually use beats a complex journal you abandon.
The Bottom Line
Your trading system is a hypothesis. Your journal is the experiment. Without data, you're guessing whether your approach works.
The best traders treat their journal as seriously as their trading rules. It's not optional - it's how edges are discovered, maintained, and improved.
Start simple. Be consistent. Review weekly. Let the data guide your evolution.
Automated tools can accelerate this process. When your platform tracks cycle phases, volume regimes, and confluence scores automatically, your journal inherits richer data without extra logging work. You can then correlate your results with market conditions you'd never track manually.
Augury Grid provides automatic trade logging with cycle context, confluence scores, and market regime data. Your journal gets richer without extra work - and you can analyze performance across conditions you'd never track manually.
See automatic tracking →