A single trade tells you very little. A good trade can lose and a bad trade can win. Only a record of many trades shows whether a way of trading holds up, and whether you actually follow it.
What to write down
- Why you took the trade, in one or two sentences, before you enter.
- Entry, stop, target and size, and the result in R.
- Whether you followed your rules, and if not, which one you broke.
- How you felt: rushed, bored, afraid of missing out.
How to use it
Once a week, read the last entries. Look for repeated mistakes rather than single losses. Losing trades are a normal cost of trading; breaking your own rules is the mistake worth fixing.