How to Review Your Trades Weekly: A 30-Minute Routine

Journaling without reviewing is just record-keeping. The value comes when you look back at a week of trades and decide what to do differently. A weekly review is the right rhythm for most active traders: often enough to catch a problem before it becomes a month, rarely enough that each review has something to work with.

Here is a 30-minute routine you can run every weekend, the same way, every week. It works best on top of a short daily habit; how to journal trades covers that part.

Before you start

You need three things:

1. A complete log. Every trade from the week, with entry, stop, exit, size and result in R. If any trades are missing, add them first.
2. Screenshots. At least for the trades you'll review in step 4.
3. Last week's notes. Especially the one change you committed to.

Do the review at the same time each week, away from live charts. Sunday afternoon or Friday after the close both work.

Step 1: Close the week (3 minutes)

Check that every trade is logged and every trade has its rules-followed field filled in. Add any missing screenshots. Mark trades you took that weren't on your plan, and valid setups you skipped.

Step 2: The five numbers (5 minutes)

Write down the same five numbers every week, in R:

These numbers are only an example. Notice what they say, though: the losing week had more trades and much lower rule-following. That pattern is common enough that it deserves to be the first thing you check.

If you need a refresher on R and expectancy, see R-multiple explained.

Why R and not dollars

Dollar P&L changes with your size. If you traded 4 MNQ on Monday and 8 on Thursday, dollar results don't compare. R does. It also keeps you honest: a +$800 week built on one oversized trade looks very different in R.

Step 3: Split by setup, grade and time (7 minutes)

Totals hide where results come from. Split them three ways:

By setup. If you trade more than one setup, which one carried the week? Over several weeks, a setup that keeps a negative expectancy is a candidate for removal.

By grade. If you grade setups before entry (A+, A, B and so on), compare the average R per grade. Your A trades should beat your B trades over time. If they don't, your checklist isn't measuring what matters.

By time. Session, weekday and hour. Look for an hour or a day that consistently costs you, for example the last hour of your session or Mondays.

A single week is too small to act on these splits. Write them down anyway and compare them with the last four weeks.

Step 4: Three best, three worst (8 minutes)

Pick your three best and three worst trades by R. For each, open the screenshot and answer four questions:

1. Was this a valid setup according to my written rules?
2. Did I enter where my plan said?
3. Did I manage and exit according to plan?
4. What would I do again, or never do again?

The best trades matter as much as the worst. Babypips' advice on journaling makes the same point: record what you did well, not just the mistakes. You want to know what a good trade looks like for you so you can recognise the next one.

Be careful of one trap: a trade that broke your rules and won is still a mistake. A trade that followed every rule and lost is still a good trade. The review is about the decision, not the outcome.

Step 5: Price your mistakes (4 minutes)

List the mistakes you tagged this week and the R lost on those trades:

This turns a vague feeling ("I was impatient") into a number ("impatience cost me 4R this week"). The largest number on the list is usually your best lever for next week. If trades after a loss top the list often, our guide to revenge trading has rules that help.

Step 6: One change for next week (3 minutes)

Choose one change. Only one. It should be specific and checkable:

• Good: "After any loss, wait 15 minutes before the next entry."
• Good: "No trades after 11:00 am New York time."
• Too vague: "Be more patient."
• Too big: "Switch to a new strategy."

Write it at the top of next week's notes. Next week's review starts by checking whether you followed it.

This step only works if mistakes are tagged consistently. How to tag trades sets up a short tag list, and FOMO trading shows the method on one common mistake.

A one-page weekly template

Copy this into your notes or journal:

``` Week of: _ Last week's change: _ Followed? Yes / Partly / No

Net R: _ Trades: Expectancy: _R Rules followed: % Largest drawdown: ____R

Best setup this week: _ Worst: A-grade avg R: _ B-grade avg R: Trades after a loss: _ trades, _R

Best trade lesson: _ Worst trade lesson: _ Most expensive mistake: _ (_R)

One change for next week: ____ ```

For the trade-level fields that feed this review, see our trading journal template.

The monthly review

Once a month, zoom out. Use the last four or more weekly reviews:

• Is expectancy in R stable, rising or falling?
• Is rule-following improving?
• Did the weekly changes help? Keep the ones that did; drop the ones that didn't.
• Are there setups, sessions or days to remove?
• Is your 1R still right for your account or your prop drawdown?

Monthly is also the right time to compare live results with backtest results for the same setup. A large gap usually points to execution, not to the setup.

Extra checks for prop accounts

If you're in an evaluation or on a funded account, add three lines to the weekly review:

1. Room left. Your current balance minus your current drawdown floor, in dollars and in R. On a trailing drawdown this can shrink even in a winning week, so recalculate it rather than assuming.
2. Daily limit usage. The highest share of the daily loss limit you used on any day this week. If it was above 50% on any day, ask what happened on that day before anything else.
3. Consistency. Your best day as a share of total profit. On a program with a consistency rule, a single large day can raise your target, so it's worth watching weekly rather than discovering it at the end.

These three numbers decide whether next week is a normal week or a week to trade smaller.

What progress looks like

Progress in a journal rarely looks like a straight equity curve. Over eight to twelve weeks, the healthier signs are usually these:

• Rule-following climbs and stays above 90%.
• The gap between your best and worst weeks narrows.
• Fewer trades, with a higher share of A-grade setups.
• Mistakes that used to appear every week now appear every few weeks.
• Your largest weekly drawdown in R gets smaller.

Expectancy often follows these process changes with a delay. If your process numbers are improving and results haven't caught up yet, that is normal; give it more weeks rather than more changes.

Common review mistakes

• Reviewing only losing weeks. Winning weeks contain just as much information, and they're when bad habits get rewarded.
• Changing several things at once. You'll never know which change worked.
• Judging by dollars. Size changes make dollar comparisons misleading.
• Overreacting to one week. Ten to thirty trades is a small sample. Look for patterns that repeat across weeks.
• Skipping the review after a bad week. That's the week you need it most, and the one you'll most want to avoid.

Doing it faster

The routine above works with a spreadsheet, but steps 2, 3 and 5 are mostly arithmetic. A journal app can do that part for you so the 30 minutes go to the screenshots and the decision.

In TJ, Review shows your numbers in R with the P&L calendar, 30 ready-made reports (R by setup and grade, rules followed vs broken, performance after a loss, session and hour) and an AI review of your week that compares it with the week before. The AI reads only your own journal and never gives trade advice. You can see the reports with sample data in the demo.

Whatever tool you use, the habit matters more than the software: same day, same steps, one change.

Not financial advice. Reviewing your trades helps you understand your past decisions; it doesn't predict future results.