What to Write in a Trading Journal: The Fields That Earn Their Time
Eighteen fields, before, during and after a trade, with a rough time for each and a verdict on which are worth it. Start small and add what your method needs.
3 Nov 2026 · 5 min read
Write what you need to answer one question later: which of my decisions, taken the same way again, were worth repeating? Everything else in a journal is cost. The table below lists 18 fields in the order a trade happens, with a rough time for each and a verdict on whether it earns that time. The times and verdicts are our judgement, not a measurement, so move them to suit how you trade.
The fields, before, during and after a trade
| Field | When | Minutes | Verdict | Why | In Trepeat's journal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Instrument and direction | Before | 0.2 | Keep | Free from the platform. Needed to group anything later. | Filled in from the trade |
| Setup or model name | Before | 0.2 | Keep | The one tag every later question hangs on. Use a fixed list so spelling cannot split it. | Model |
| Timeframe | Before | 0.1 | Keep if it fits you | Matters if you trade more than one. Skip it if you only use one. | Notes |
| Confluences present | Before | 0.5 | Keep if it fits you | Only useful if your method has a checklist. Then it is the best way to test which items matter. | Notes |
| Planned stop distance | Before | 0.2 | Keep | Without it you cannot write the result in R afterwards. | Notes |
| Planned reward-to-risk | Before | 0.2 | Keep | Lets you compare the plan with what happened. | R:R |
| Risk taken (money or % of balance) | Before | 0.2 | Keep | Turns a result in money into a result in R. | Notes |
| Reason for taking it, in one line | Before | 0.5 | Keep | The line you cannot rewrite honestly afterwards. Short is fine. | Notes |
| Screenshot at entry | Before | 0.3 | Keep | Memory edits the chart. The picture does not. | Screenshots |
| Emotional state at entry | During | 0.1 | Keep | A number from 0 to 10 is enough. Patterns appear over dozens of trades, not one. | Emotional state |
| Any change to the plan (stop moved, size changed) | During | 0.3 | Keep | Moved stops are where a journal earns its keep. Write them when they happen. | Notes |
| Exit price and time | After | 0 | Keep | Free from the platform. | Filled in from the trade |
| Result in R | After | 0.3 | Keep | Makes small and large accounts, and different risk sizes, comparable. | Notes (the trade shows its P&L) |
| Grade for execution, apart from the result | After | 0.2 | Keep | Separates a well-run loss from a badly run win. Without it the journal only scores luck. | Rating |
| Mistake tag, if any | After | 0.2 | Keep if it fits you | Useful once you have a short list of your own recurring errors. | Notes |
| What you would repeat or change | After | 0.7 | Optional | Helpful on trades that surprised you. A forced line on every trade turns to filler. | Notes |
| Screenshot at exit | After | 0.3 | Optional | Worth it on the trades you will want to review. Skip on routine ones. | Screenshots |
| Weekly pattern note | Review | 10 | Keep | The reason the other fields exist. Without a review the rest is storage. | Journal list, filters and calendar |
Added up, the per-trade fields come to about 4.5 minutes if you fill in all of them, and about 2.7 minutes if you fill in only the ones marked Keep. The weekly review is separate. A field you skip on most trades is a field to delete, not one to feel guilty about.
Your fields, not a template's
Two disciplined traders can need different columns. One trades a single model on one timeframe and needs no timeframe field at all. Another has a seven-item checklist and wants each item ticked. A third grades entry, management and exit separately, where the table above has one grade. A discretionary trader may care most about the state they were in; a rules-based one about whether they followed the rules.
So treat the list as a menu. Start with the fields marked Keep, run it for a month, then look at which columns you never used and which question you wished you could answer. Add one field for each missing answer. A journal that asks only what you will use is the one still being filled in six months later.
What to leave out
- Anything the platform already stores. Price, time, size and result are in the history. Re-typing them is the quickest way to stop journalling.
- Opinions on the market in general. A paragraph on the dollar's mood is commentary. Keep the part that changed your decision.
- Fields you would fill in to look good. If you are tempted to round the emotional score towards calm, the field is measuring your self-image.
How this maps to Trepeat
We're working on a free journal and a backtester, with no date yet. Today Trepeat is a trade copier for MT4, MT5 and cTrader, currently on demo accounts, and you can add notes, a grade and screenshots to any copied trade once it closes, with a calendar of your results.
An entry holds six fields (R:R, rating, emotional state, model, notes and screenshots), and the rest of the table above goes in notes. The journal documentation lists every limit. To turn the fields into a routine, see how to keep a trading journal; for what to do with the R column, see R-multiples explained; to answer some of them before the trade, the pre-trade checklist template.
Written by the Trepeat team.