Free Resource
Free Trading Journal Template (Excel) + How to Use It
Most beginners journal like this:
- “Bought here”
- “Sold here”
- “Market manipulated me”
- Repeat
It feels productive, but it doesn’t tell you why you’re winning or losing.
This journal is different (and better) because it forces you to log:
- your bias
- your setup
- your execution
- your risk math
- your decision quality
- and the uncomfortable part: your emotional state
If you’re serious about getting better, you need something that tells you, clearly:
- “You broke your rules on 3 of your last 5 trades.”
- “You trade worse when you’re sleepy.”
- “Your bias is wrong more than you admit.”
This sheet does exactly that.
Quick roadmap (the 30-second version)
| Step | What you do | Where in the sheet |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Log the trade basics | Date, Pair, Session, Direction |
| 2 | Write your bias + target idea | Weekly bias, Daily Bias, Daily Open, LIQ target |
| 3 | Enter the numbers | Entry Price, Stop Loss, Take Profit, Exit Price, Lot, Balance |
| 4 | Let Excel do the math | Risk ($), Reward ($), R:R, P/L ($), Win/Loss |
| 5 | Review the decision (not the result) | Entry Reason, Exit Reason, Bias correct?, Follow rules? |
| 6 | Track your mindset | How do I feel today?, Personal issues?, Should I be trading? |
| 7 | Learn from it | What did I do right?, What did I do wrong? |
That’s it. No candle-by-candle roleplaying.
What’s inside this journal (and why it matters)
Your columns break down nicely into 4 groups.
1) Market context (so you stop trading randomly)
These columns:
- Weekly bias
- Daily Bias
- Daily Open (ABOVE/BELOW)
- LIQ target
- Session
This section is basically: “What game am I playing today?”
Without it, you end up taking setups that look “valid” but don’t match the day’s direction or liquidity idea.
2) Execution (what you actually did)
These columns:
- Setup
- Enter time / Exit time
- Direction
- Entry Price / Stop Loss / Take Profit / Exit Price
- Lot
- Balance
This is the “receipt”. If you can’t write it clearly, you probably didn’t trade it clearly.
3) Automatic performance math (the part most people mess up)
Your sheet calculates things like:
- target dis (distance to target)
- stop dis (distance to stop)
- Risk ($)
- Reward ($)
- R:R
- P/L ($)
- Win/Loss
So instead of guessing whether a trade was “good”, you can quantify it.
And yes, win rate matters. But it matters a lot less if your R:R is trash.
4) Review + psychology (where the real improvement comes from)
These columns are the whole point:
- Entry Reason
- Exit Reason
- Was my bias correct?
- DID I FOLLOW RULES
- How do I feel today?
- Any personal issues affecting me?
- Should I even be trading today?
- What did I do right?
- What did I do wrong?
Because most trading problems aren’t “strategy problems”.
They’re:
- impatience
- revenge trading
- moving stops
- overtrading
- trading when tired/stressed
- breaking rules because you “felt like it”
This journal makes those patterns painfully visible.
How I personally use it (without turning journaling into a second job)
- Right after the trade closes, I fill in the numbers and the reasons.
If I wait until “later”, I magically forget the dumb parts. Humans are incredible like that. - I keep Entry Reason and Exit Reason short but specific.
Bad: “Looked good.”
Better: “Broke structure, returned to zone, confirmed on lower TF, entered with defined invalidation.” - I answer “Should I even be trading today?” honestly.
If I’m sleepy, distracted, angry, or rushing: I write it. That data becomes useful later. - Once a week, I filter/sort and look for patterns:
- Which session performs best?
- Which setup performs best?
- How often am I marking “Follow rules = no”?
- What mood shows up before losing streaks?
That weekly review is where progress happens.