How to keep a crypto trading journal (with a template)

By Overfit Labs · Updated 2026-10-21 · Educational only, not financial advice.

A trading journal is a record of what you planned, what you did and why. Its job isn't to make you feel organised. It gives you evidence you can review later, so decisions are based on your own numbers instead of memory, which tends to remember wins and forget the rest.

What to record

Before the session

Plan: which markets you'll watch and what would make you trade (or not trade) today.
Rules checklist: the handful of rules you've committed to, e.g. "risk at most 1% per trade", "no trades in the first 15 minutes after a big news release", "stop-loss set before entry".
State: sleep, mood, distractions. It sounds soft, but it's often where patterns show up.

For each trade

Symbol, direction, entry, exit, size and fees.
Planned stop and target, so you can compute the R-multiple afterwards.
Setup name (e.g. "breakout retest") so results can be grouped by setup.
Whether you followed every rule on this trade. Yes or no, no excuses.
A screenshot or chart note, if useful.

After the session

One lesson in one sentence.
Did you keep all of today's rules?

A copy-paste template

Date:
Plan for today:
Rules (tick each): [ ] max 1% risk  [ ] stop set before entry  [ ] no revenge trades  [ ] stop after 2 losses
Mood / sleep (1-5):

Trade #1
  Symbol / side:            Setup:
  Entry:        Stop:        Target:       Size:
  Exit:         Fees:        Result ($):   Result (R):
  Followed all rules? Y / N  If no, which one:
  Note:

End of day
  All rules kept today? Y / N
  One lesson:

How to review it

Weekly: total P&L, number of trades, win rate, average win and loss, and expectancy.
Group by setup: which setups actually make money for you? Drop or shrink the ones that don't.
Group by rules kept vs broken: see trading discipline and rule-breaking days.
Check drawdown: the worst peak-to-trough fall tells you more about risk than the average.

Small samples are noisy. Twenty trades can look great or terrible by luck alone, so treat early conclusions as hypotheses, not facts.

Doing it in Daily Edge

The Daily Edge journal follows this structure: a daily plan, a rules checklist, mood, trades and one lesson, stored only in your browser. The free version covers the daily check-in and streaks. Pro adds stats split by rules kept and broken, setups and mood.