Improve Your Trading Resutls with Trading Journal

Most traders agree that keeping a trading journal can be essential in improving results. There are many reasons behind it. Your thoughts and ideas will have a chance to be methodically organized and followed. It will help you to focus on yourself with your emotions right in front of you. Furthermore, necessary discipline is much more easily attainable when actions are strictly written down and not just planned out inside your mind.

Due to all of those reasons, your daily journal will present the opportunity to improve every aspect of your trading, whether it is entrances, exits, or emotional control.

First note in your daily journal should be your present emotional state. Sincerely, everything outside trading influences trading. Just to illustrate that, all my worst losses had happened during emotional pressures I suffered in my family life, such as moving to a new city, sickness or death in a family. Even severe argument with your spouse will have a disturbing effect on your mind. We are not machines, and I for one like to be that way – I like to be with emotions. But you should definitely confront them by noting them down. And right away, your mind will then have a chance to proceed in finding the best way to deal with those emotions.
Secondly, do some general market analysis. In this I consider
1) daily and hourly trends on technical side and
2) upcoming and potentially disturbing economical news on fundamental side.
Only then decide how you want to trade with stating your plan of attack that should include maximum allowed loss, desired entrances and exit points.
As you enter the trade, you can note down right away following:
1) why you got in
2) where you placed your stop loss and profit taking
3) reasons behind placing them there

Next to each trade, I also like to state if there is something unique to it, like possible emotion I may be temporarily experiencing or some side distraction.
After the trade is done and I am out, I usually like to comment on it, what I could have done better pointing to the mistakes I would like to avoid in the future.
Example of my setup:

This, of course, can be time consuming. But, when you have something written down, the information will be right there in front of your face and eyes, and not stored in some distant part of hard to reach subconscious mind. Then it will just be a matter of acting on it to reach desired objectives.