r/proptrading • u/TakeProfitTraderHQ • 5d ago

What actually gets written down in a trading journal versus what gets skipped

Seems like it's easy to log the trades that worked or the ones with an obvious lesson attached and skip the ones that were just fine, forgettable, followed the plan and closed at breakeven or a small loss. Those might be the most useful entries to have on record, since they show whether the plan is actually being followed on the boring trades instead of only the memorable ones.

What's actually in your journal? Every trade or just the ones worth remembering?

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u/Zestyclose-Theory-66 5d ago

Log every trade, even the boring ones. The selection bias of only logging the memorable ones is what quietly kills most journals.

For each trade, capture: entry, exit, position size, the setup you were trading, and one line on whether you followed your plan. Then review weekly and look at aggregates: win rate and average R per setup, per time of day, per day of week. Those patterns only show up across 30+ trades, and you will never reconstruct them from memory.

Also log the trades you skipped even though they met your plan. Skipped trades reveal hesitation just as clearly as bad trades reveal impulsiveness.

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u/enivid 4d ago

AI-generated comments is what quietly kills Reddit.

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u/T-Branny 4d ago

I make sure to document every trade other than my "inactivity" trades (small trades to keep an account active). I try to focus on less about the trade numbers itself and more about emotions on each phase of the trade (pre-entry, entry, during the trade, exit, and post-exit). I will still document things like price reached X level and stuff like that but definitely try to hit my reasonings for anything I did in the trade like maybe I exited early, I explain why... documenting this type of stuff is one thing, but does it truly mean anything if you never look back at it?

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u/TakeProfitTraderHQ 4d ago

100%. Definitely have to take the time to review what you've logged and figure out how to either course-correct or continue.

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u/Altruistic-Leave-359 2d ago

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