Desk Routine
The journal problem is not motivation, it is design. Traders build a spreadsheet with thirty columns, fill it in diligently for eleven days and never open it again. A journal survives when filling it in is faster than feeling guilty about it, and when reading it back actually changes something.
Six fields, nothing else
| Field | Format | Why it earns its place |
|---|---|---|
| Setup name | One of your five named setups | Lets you find which edge is paying |
| Adherence | Yes / partly / no | Separates bad trading from bad luck |
| Risk taken | Per cent of equity | Catches size creep before it is expensive |
| R multiple | Result divided by initial risk | Comparable across instruments and account sizes |
| Mistake tag | Blank or one word | Turns vague regret into a countable event |
| One line | Free text, one sentence | Context you will not remember in six weeks |
Note what is missing. No screenshots, no indicator settings, no emotional essay. Those are review-session artefacts, not daily ones. If you want screenshots, take them for the weekly review, not for every trade.
The adherence column is the whole point
Outcome and process are different measurements and mixing them is why most journals produce no insight. A losing trade taken exactly as planned is a good trade. A winning trade taken in violation of your rules is a warning. Once you can sort by adherence, you can answer the only question that matters in a drawdown: is the system failing or am I?
The weekly read, thirty minutes
- Count trades by setup and compute average R for each. One setup usually carries the book.
- Count mistake tags. If one tag appears three times, it is a process problem, not a slip.
- Compare adherence rate to the previous four weeks.
- Write one change for next week. Exactly one.
What to do with the mistake tags
Use a small vocabulary — early, chased, oversized, moved-stop, revenge, skipped — and keep it stable for at least a quarter. The value comes from counting the same thing repeatedly. A tag that appears once is noise; a tag that appears eleven times in a quarter is the most profitable thing you will fix this year.
Your equity curve tells you what happened. Your adherence column tells you whether to change anything.
Written by Adrian Vestberg — former interbank FX dealer, now running a two-person discretionary desk.