Do you journal your trading progress?

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

I learnt something just last night as I was watching a video interview of a few traders, these traders talked about the importance of journaling their trading progress, how it has helped them to learn from their mistakes and become better. What they usually do is that, they write down every trades they took during the week, every information about taking that trade, they will write it down, then on weekends they review the journey to check if they actually followed their rules and strategy. It doesn't matter if they lost the trade or not but they will write every single steps they took before taking the trade until when they closed the trade.

For me, I don't completely do that but I only take screenshots and later on I can revisit the screenshot, it helps me to also check if it was still the same strategy I'm maintaining in all the trades I'm taking.

So, I want to ask the traders in the house, how serious do you take the journaling process of your trades and has it help you do better? Then I also want to ask, do you believe that journaling your trading progress can actually help a trader to improve?.

[DPHOR]

My first time of hearing about journaling a trade, but what I can recall of is tracking trading records as a matter of fact. If we talks about recording then u must say that sometimes i do trade my previous trades to know if I am being rash on my decisions or being emotionally controlled. Of course, when I do some simple trades what I does is to track my losing ratios and my profit level and whenever I observe that I am more on profit then it shows there is progress along the line.

[Stepstowealth]

I learnt something just last night as I was watching a video interview of a few traders, these traders talked about the importance of journaling their trading progress, how it has helped them to learn from their mistakes and become better. What they usually do is that, they write down every trades they took during the week, every information about taking that trade, they will write it down, then on weekends they review the journey to check if they actually followed their rules and strategy. It doesn't matter if they lost the trade or not but they will write every single steps they took before taking the trade until when they closed the trade.

I think this is another angle of what discipline is and should look like, being able to journal in a detailed way your trades and the reason why you have taking a trade decision as well the outcome. I know a trader Trading on my Whatsapp post a picture of the journal they have, and the journal is in a way that it is already printed having all the important questions that you should ask yourself before taking the trade as well as the outcome and date of the trade. I think it is a standard trading journal that every trader especially a new trader should have to be able to keep track of their trading and ensure that they are improving and not going back in trading.

do you believe that journaling your trading progress can actually help a trader to improve?.

If you journal, you can know what you need to improve on as a trader.

[Hatchy]

So, I want to ask the traders in the house, how serious do you take the journaling process of your trades and has it help you do better? Then I also want to ask, do you believe that journaling your trading progress can actually help a trader to improve?.

Journaling your trades is a good way to keep track of your emotions and actions in the market. It actually does help, but not every trader is able to keep up with the process long enough. Some of those who claims to journal every trade might not even be honest with themselves because once emotions kicks in, especially during your losses, you might not even remember you had a journal.
Just like you, taking screenshots is one way to help keep track of your trades faster. I do have a journal and it's like 4 year old and I still do keep records of my trades, but I don't do that after every trade or setup as that would be cumbersome for me. What I do is after every week, I simply write down the things a noted on the market and how I felt throughout the week. The screenshots are kept on my telegram group as references to any trade I've taken since I began trading.

The question now is, does journaling helps? Yes it does, but only those who are able to go back to read the wall of text they wrote would learn a thing or two over time and that's why I don't really see it as being important as much as other claims.

[sergiorus]

Most CEXs offer great analytic tools to track your performance and possible mistakes.

I'm not sure a separate journal is really necessary at this point.

Unless maybe you need to find connections between your trading performance and your real life events/mood/psychological state.

[AVE5]

So, I want to ask the traders in the house, how serious do you take the journaling process of your trades and has it help you do better? Then I also want to ask, do you believe that journaling your trading progress can actually help a trader to improve?.

I'm familiar with this trading strategy but never thought of tagging it a particular name as the TRADING JOURNAL.
When it comes to this concept of keeping records of previous trading experiences, it absolutely involves details of the data's obtained in analysing the market and the edge to edge steps you undertake before you enters and exits the market.
This is neither not new but an experience trader will always develop the principles of keeping past records for reference use just in case the movement of market price has to repeat itself, recalling and employing the previous strategy if it was profitable is worth giving a try if you can shine on with it again.
It leaves a broader picture reflecting to your past experience which should be encouraged to be aborted or adopted in the future.

[Zaguru12]

Most CEXs offer great analytic tools to track your performance and possible mistakes.

I'm not sure a separate journal is really necessary at this point.

Unless maybe you need to find connections between your trading performance and your real life events/mood/psychological state.

This is exactly one of the reasons why you see traders now not usually knowing what journaling is all about, you would see most newbie traders actually not even knowing a thing about it, because most exchanges or trading platforms now have it inbuilt within their platforms and this is usually done by sync directly with automated tracking platforms, in the past you use it independently. 

Or the most common one was using the goggle sheets to write down then and this was actually when proper journaling was done. I agree with you that it’s actually not needed for now although some still uses it because some platforms do not capture most of the metrics needed my some traders and they need to do it themselves.

I'm familiar with this trading strategy but never thought of tagging it a particular name as the TRADING JOURNAL.

Trading strategy is actually different from trading journaling actually

[Flashift]

For me, I don't completely do that but I only take screenshots and later on I can revisit the screenshot, it helps me to also check if it was still the same strategy I'm maintaining in all the trades I'm taking.

You are totally right! journaling is a massive game-changer. Screenshots are helpful, but writing down your exact mindset at execution exposes the impulsive decisions that quietly ruin a good strategy.

[Freeveto]

That will be good to track your trading records and make to make corrections when needed.
Exchanges history can also help keep such data, because keeping it manually can be time consuming and special if you are writing it down manually, but going back to the exchange you used to check the trade can be easier for you to track back, and you can also correct your mistakes from the data in the exchange.

[Faisal2202]

So, I want to ask the traders in the house, how serious do you take the journaling process of your trades and has it help you do better? Then I also want to ask, do you believe that journaling your trading progress can actually help a trader to improve?.

Yes, I have tried it for a month, and the results were great, but my notes were different. I was trying to record the actual, real-time experience of the bull run of 2024 into those notes, so the next time when I see a bull run, I could know not all short-term pumps mean a major breakout, or not all big dumps mean a major dropdown.

I also analyzed some alts and wrote some important notes about them, and to be honest, when I look back, I just think I should have written more because it is never enough for things like this. Maybe for a trading journal for a week, you won't need too much wording.

But it is a good practice, although it can consume a lot of our time, but we must practice it, at least for fun, to see how it goes for us.

[Wiwo]

Most of us including myself don't journal pur trading records and we believe that whatever mistakes, experience we have gain during our trading time can be recorded I the head but the truth is that it will take a few days and you forget everything.

But if you write them down and have proper records, you can always go back to it and pick a few strategy and lessons from your previous trades.

So I will say that journaling your trades or other records is generally a good thing to do.

[Hamza2424]

So, I want to ask the traders in the house, how serious do you take the journaling process of your trades and has it help you do better? Then I also want to ask, do you believe that journaling your trading progress can actually help a trader to improve?.

I think I could tell if I have followed my rules and strategies or not without even writing anything down. I think it will only cost us a lot of time that on the weekend we could be enjoying with our family or giving ourselves some good time, like going out, etc.

Because that's what weekends are for. I also used to take screenshots so I could at least remember at which price I entered a trade or used to share them with my friend, but it is a newbie thing haha.

I am not into this because I think it is better if we keep a record of our capital than focus on what we already did, while we could do it in the meantime. We could record ourselves maybe. That's even better and less time consuming.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

So, I want to ask the traders in the house, how serious do you take the journaling process of your trades and has it help you do better? Then I also want to ask, do you believe that journaling your trading progress can actually help a trader to improve?.

Jotting down your progress and keeping tab on them improves anything you are doing, your brain does not have the mental capacity to store all the information that you want and you putting down some things on your note pad or notebook gives your brain space to accommodate other things.

You might forget some progress that you have had before but once you open your journal you will get back all the knowledge you stored there. I had journals when I started trading and I kept tab on my losses, my success and every strategy that I use and which one works better in which condition. Jotting down my progress helped me a lot during that time and some times I return back to the journal to see my progress often, I am not a frequent trader so I don't currently keep tabs on what I am doing but I remember very well how fun it was back then and how it helped me out.

Having a journal will definitely be an advice I will give to any new trader to always document their progress.

[Alphakilo]

So, I want to ask the traders in the house, how serious do you take the journaling process of your trades and has it help you do better? Then I also want to ask, do you believe that journaling your trading progress can actually help a trader to improve?.

Jotting down your progress and keeping tab on them improves anything you are doing, your brain does not have the mental capacity to store all the information that you want and you putting down some things on your note pad or notebook gives your brain space to accommodate other things.

You might forget some progress that you have had before but once you open your journal you will get back all the knowledge you stored there. I had journals when I started trading and I kept tab on my losses, my success and every strategy that I use and which one works better in which condition. Jotting down my progress helped me a lot during that time and some times I return back to the journal to see my progress often, I am not a frequent trader so I don't currently keep tabs on what I am doing but I remember very well how fun it was back then and how it helped me out.

Having a journal will definitely be an advice I will give to any new trader to always document their progress.

There's an old saying my class teacher do say back then and it is, ' the faintest pen is better than the sharpest mind.' This just point blank answers the question of the need to always keep a well documented journal of our trading progress because no matter how sharp we think our brain is at the moment, journaling is one of the few things that would differentiate a serious trader from a mere gambler with few tricks.

Journaling helps keep your trading account alive and is a great tool among other requirements that helps to build, track and enforce with strict discipline, your knowledge and understanding of the market. It makes risk management practices be effective and efficient and productive in every possible way.

[rat03gopoh]

Most CEXs offer great analytic tools to track your performance and possible mistakes.

I'm not sure a separate journal is really necessary at this point.

Unless maybe you need to find connections between your trading performance and your real life events/mood/psychological state.

Cexs only offers a default journal format based on the input they receive, and some disciplined traders prefer to rebuild it using their automation APIs to streamline journaling. There are many trading journal formats available, and each has its own unique characteristics depending on the evaluation needs.

[BitMaxz]

Before, I thought it was not actually needed, but eventually when I trying to figure out the reason why I lost a trade or won by checking the trading history, it wasn't enough. I can't remember why I enter and why I win or lose the trade.
That's why I try to journal them and put every reason why I enter a trade. Reviewing them every week is enough to remind you most of your mistakes.

So journaling your progress is a must even you are profitable because in the future if the same scenario happens again, you can plan in the future what approaching you are going to do.

[Lida93]

Journaling, that means writing down every single details from the beginning to theme of the trade, right? This is an attribute not every trader would want to spend time doing all the time but it's effective in getting cause effects of your trades results because you get to know where it was a fault of yours and when it wasn't as to why a particular trade strategy didn't work for you. It's synonymous to backtesting trades to get to know if it would perform any different at different time if you have to repeat the strategy again. The advantage about doing the journaling or whatever it could be rightly called is that it improves a trader winning rate at trades he opens, he does open a position by  emotions.

[mirakal]

There's no doubt that journaling your trading outcomes will help you increase the success rate of your trades. Every trader is actually encouraged to do that because its proven effective than those who do not make recordings at all.

However, the problem is, not every trader has the time to get back to his past journals and check how they did trading in the past, because it really take some of our time. That's why I understand why some traders do not make journals, they just make sure to learn from their past trades.

[LogitechMouse]

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So, I want to ask the traders in the house, how serious do you take the journaling process of your trades and has it help you do better? Then I also want to ask, do you believe that journaling your trading progress can actually help a trader to improve?.

Almost ALL of the trader influencers that I see online always say that journaling every single trade will make you better in the long run because you will see the mistakes that you're doing, and you will make some adjustments off of it.

I've tried doing it as well in the past, and I don't know, but I have this feeling where I feel degraded and I feel that I'm just dumb enough to stop trading whenever I see consecutive losing streaks on my journal. I tried to do it using Notion, and it help in the first days, but in the succeeding days, I stopped it because I lost multiple times. TBH, I'm trying to make some changes on that attitude of mine, but so far I haven't done it, and it's hard. I mean looking at your journal and you see loss after loss after loss after loss. I know that it helps you make adjustments, but at the same time, it could destroy your self-confidence.

In the future, I'll try to do it again and journal my trades, but as of now, I'm not doing it.

[crwth]

In my trading, especially the thing that I do in terms of automated trading, I export my trades and use an Excel sheet to track it so I can do some data analysis and make sure that the data I'm looking at is quantifiable. Checking my performance in terms of the following.

• Win Rate
• R:R

So, I want to ask the traders in the house, how serious do you take the journaling process of your trades and has it help you do better? Then I also want to ask, do you believe that journaling your trading progress can actually help a trader to improve?.

I believe that having a trading journal would at least help you understand what went wrong and you could improve better.

You could automate your journaling by using API as well, so that's a plus.