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What to record in a trading journal, and how to review it

By TellHawk Research · October 12, 2026 · 5 min read

A trading journal is a record of decisions, not just results. A list of profits and losses tells you what happened; a journal that also records why you acted and what you planned lets you ask whether you followed your own rules. This guide covers which fields are worth keeping, a simple review routine, and the common ways journals fail. It describes a method; it is not advice about what or when to trade.

Key takeaways

• Write the plan before the trade and the result after it, so the record cannot drift toward the outcome.
• Measure each trade in units of the money you risked, so trades of different sizes can be compared.
• Review for process first. A few trades cannot say much about a setup.

Fields worth keeping

Keep it small enough that you will actually fill it in. A useful minimum:

• Date, instrument and direction.
• Planned entry, stop and target, written before the trade.
• Actual entry, exit and size, and fees.
• Risk in money at the planned stop, so every trade can be compared on the same scale.
• A setup tag from a short list you define, such as "breakout" or "pullback".
• Plan adherence: did you follow the plan, yes or no, and if no, what changed?
• A line on context: what the market was doing and why the setup appealed.
• A screenshot of the chart at entry.

Measure in risk units

Many traders express results in R: the profit or loss divided by the money risked at the planned stop. A trade that makes twice the amount risked is +2R; a stop-out is about -1R. R makes trades of different sizes comparable and shows whether your winners and losers are the sizes you planned, which a win rate alone cannot show. R is a common convention among traders rather than a regulated measure, so state how you define it in your journal.

A weekly review

1. Count. How many trades, and how many followed the plan?
2. Group by tag. Average R and number of trades for each setup. Treat small counts with suspicion.
3. Find the deviations. List the trades where you broke a rule and what the trigger was: boredom, a loss just before, a news spike.
4. Compare plan to result. Did stops and targets get moved? Were exits earlier or later than planned?
5. Write one change for next week. One, not five.

An invented example

Suppose in a week you take six trades: four breakouts and two pullbacks. Three of the breakouts followed the plan; one you entered early. The early entry lost, the other three returned a mix. Looking at tags and adherence, the lesson is probably about the early entry, not about breakouts as a whole. With six trades, the sample is far too small to say anything about the setup itself. That is what a journal is good at showing: what you did, and how little a short run can prove. The figures are made up for illustration.

Common failures

• Too many fields. The journal stops after two weeks.
• Logging only after the result. Reasons written after the fact drift toward the outcome.
• Judging decisions by outcomes. A well-planned loss is not a mistake; a lucky win from a broken rule is.
• Editing history. If you change an old entry, you lose the record of what you actually thought.
• Reading too much from a few trades. Review for process first and for results only over many trades.

Setting it up in ten minutes

Make a sheet with one row per trade and the columns above. Add a second tab for the list of setup tags and the rules for each, one line apiece. Add a third for weekly notes. Decide now when you will fill it in: planned fields before you enter, result fields when you exit. A journal that depends on remembering later tends to be a journal that stops.

Recording your state

One short field for how you felt, or how the day had gone, is worth keeping. Over a few months you can check whether your own rule breaks cluster after a loss or a long idle spell, but you will only see that pattern if you wrote the state down at the time. Keep it factual ("two losses this morning, tired") rather than a diary. You are looking for triggers, not telling a story.

A monthly check

• Which tags have enough trades to say anything about, and which do not yet?
• Has your average risk per trade drifted from what you intended?
• Which single rule did you break most often, and what was usually happening just before?
• Is there a setup you keep taking but never planned? Either give it a rule or stop taking it.

Where this fits

A spreadsheet is enough. If you place orders through TellHawk Trader, orders placed there are logged to its journal so the record matches what you actually did, you can add trades by hand, and its reports summarise the closed trades. Trader also has a Prop Challenge tracker that shows your journal against the daily loss, drawdown and profit target rules you enter, which is the same distance-to-limit habit described in our guide to prop firm challenge rules. Nothing here is a recommendation to trade any instrument.

About the sources

This guide describes a record-keeping method rather than reporting data or rules. It states no market statistic or regulatory requirement, and every example number is invented. Last reviewed 2026-10-12.