A trading journal only helps if you record the same things every time. Here’s a checklist you can use for any options trade, from a single call to a four-leg condor.
The trade itself
- Underlying symbol
- Strategy name (vertical, iron condor, butterfly, calendar, and so on)
- Every leg: strike, call or put, expiration, buy or sell, and quantity
- Entry date and time
- Net credit or debit, per contract
- Maximum risk and maximum reward
- Exit date, time, and price, or whether it expired
- Fees and commissions
- Final P&L after fees
The context
- Why you took the trade, in one sentence
- Your planned exit: profit target, stop, or time
- What actually made you exit
- Market conditions you noticed, like a news event or a big gap
- One or two tags, like “followed plan,” “early exit,” or “oversized”
After the trade
- Did you follow your own rules? Which ones, if not?
- What would you do the same next time?
- What would you change?
A five-minute weekly review
- Total P&L, win rate, and profit factor for the week
- Your best and worst trade, and what made the difference
- Any rule you broke, and what it cost
- One thing to keep doing and one thing to change
Tip: the most useful part of a journal is often the notes and tags. Numbers tell you what happened. Your notes tell you why.
Quillstrike fills in the trade section automatically from your broker’s CSV file, grouping every leg, so you only add the context: a note, a tag, and the rules you want to hold yourself to.
Put your trades on the record
Import your broker CSV and see every multi-leg trade grouped, your patterns, and your key findings. Free during early access.
Start freeThis guide is for education only and isn’t investment advice. Options involve significant risk and aren’t suitable for every investor. Examples are hypothetical.