A funded trader told me on a coaching call: "I spent two hours logging everything after a bad day. I'm just not used to it yet. It took forever."
Two hours. After an already exhausting trading session. That's a recipe for burnout, not improvement.
Here's what I told them — and what I want every trader to understand about journaling.
There Is No Right Way or Wrong Way
The first thing I say to every trader who's worried about their journal: "There is no right way or wrong way. It's just getting it done and becoming aware of our patterns. That's really what we're trying to go for here."
People overcomplicate journaling. They think they need to write an essay about every trade, track 47 metrics, and produce a color-coded spreadsheet. Then they burn out after two weeks and stop journaling entirely.
A screenshot with a quick note is worth more than a blank journal. The best journal is the one you actually keep.
Screenshot Everything
This is the single most impactful piece of journaling advice I give: take a screenshot of every trade.
I told a funded trader: "If you just give yourself a screenshot, you make it obvious for yourself what you were trading or what you were doing. You'll save yourself a lot of heartache going back and looking through those trades, not having to guess what you did."
Most platforms will show your trade history in the portal, but the details get wiped at the end of each trading day. If you don't capture it in the moment, you'll lose the context.
A screenshot takes five seconds. It captures your entry, your exit, your stop loss, your chart setup — everything you need to review later without relying on memory.
What to Actually Track
Keep it simple. Here's what matters:
- The setup — What did you see that made you take this trade? (Screenshot handles this.)
- Your entry and exit — Where did you get in, where did you get out?
- Did you follow your rules? — Yes or no. This is the most important metric.
- Your emotional state — Were you calm, rushed, frustrated, overconfident?
- Any notes for tomorrow — What would you do differently?
That's it. Five things. If you track those five things for every trade, you'll have more useful data than 90% of traders.
The Feedback Loop
Here's where the magic happens. When funded traders submit their journals to me, I review them and provide feedback. If I see something they're missing, I'll tell them: "Tomorrow, track this or do this differently, and then you'll improve."
But you don't need a coach to do this. You can be your own feedback loop:
- Weekly review — Every weekend, look at your week's trades. What patterns do you see? Did the same mistake show up multiple times?
- Monthly review — Zoom out. Are you getting better? Are your losses getting smaller? Is your process improving?
- Pattern recognition — This is the whole point. You're looking for repeating behaviors — both good and bad.
One of our funded traders noticed through their journal that they always lost money on the same day of the week. Same pattern: green on the first few trades, then losing control and giving everything back. Without the journal, they never would have caught that.
When Not to Journal
This might surprise you, but sometimes I tell funded traders not to do a deep journal review.
After a truly terrible day — the kind where emotions completely took over — I'll say: "That was a burn-the-book-and-bury-it type day. You know what you did wrong. You don't need to dwell on this. Reset."
Not every day deserves a forensic analysis. Some days, the lesson is obvious: you broke your rules. Log the basics, acknowledge what happened, and move on. Don't spend two hours reliving a bad day.
Make It Sustainable
The journal that works is the one you keep for years, not the one you keep for weeks. Design your process for sustainability:
- Keep it under 10 minutes per day — If it takes longer, you're overcomplicating it
- Use a consistent format — Same template every day so it becomes automatic
- Review weekly, not daily — Daily patterns are noise. Weekly patterns are signal
- Be honest — The journal is for you. If you lie to your journal, you're lying to yourself
Your trading journal is how you become aware of your patterns. And awareness is the first step toward change.
This article is based on real coaching sessions with DTR Trading funded traders. The scenarios and advice are drawn directly from one-on-one calls where traders brought their real challenges to work through together.