Trading journal template: the 14 columns that matter
Most trading journal templates you'll find are either too thin to teach you anything or so elaborate you'll abandon them by the second week. This one is the middle: fourteen columns, five minutes to build in Google Sheets or Excel, and no download or email required — the whole thing is below and you can copy it.
Three of these columns are the ones almost every template leaves out. They're also the only three that change how you behave.
The 14 columns
Block A — Identification (4 columns)
| Column | Example | Why it's there |
|---|---|---|
| Date | 2026-07-30 | Lets you group by weekday |
| Time | 09:42 | Session hour is a huge hidden variable |
| Instrument | BTC/USDT · AAPL | Performance varies wildly by symbol |
| Direction | Long / Short | Most traders are far worse at one side |
Block B — The trade (7 columns)
| Column | Note |
|---|---|
| Setup | Be strict with names. "Breakout" and "breakout retest" are different setups with different expectancies. |
| Entry | Actual fill, not the level you wanted. |
| Stop | The stop you set before entering. If you moved it later, that belongs in Block C. |
| Target | Planned, not achieved. This is what lets you see if you cut winners early. |
| Exit | Actual fill. |
| Size | Units or contracts. |
| Result | Net of fees. Gross P&L flatters marginal strategies into looking profitable. |
Block C — The three columns nobody includes
Here's the part that separates a journal from a ledger.
| Column | Values | What it reveals |
|---|---|---|
| Followed plan? | Yes / No | Separates good process from good luck |
| State before entry | Calm / Impatient / Frustrated / Euphoric / Recovering | Your worst trades cluster in two of these |
| Previous trade | Win / Loss + minutes ago | Exposes revenge trading instantly |
That last column is one dropdown and one number, and it's the single highest-value cell in the whole template. Sort your losing trades by "minutes since previous loss" and the pattern usually announces itself in about four seconds.
The three formulas you need
Assuming Entry in F, Stop in G, Exit in I, Size in J:
- Risk per trade:
=ABS(F2-G2)*J2 - R-multiple:
=(I2-F2)*J2 / (ABS(F2-G2)*J2)— for shorts, invert the numerator. R-multiple is what makes a small trade and a large trade comparable; currency alone hides that completely. - Expectancy (over your whole sheet):
=AVERAGE(R_column). If it's above zero, your edge is real. If it's below zero and your win rate looks fine, you're cutting winners early.
Add a pivot table grouping by Setup and by Followed plan?. Those two pivots are 90% of the value of any paid analytics dashboard.
The 2×2 that matters more than your win rate
Once you have the "Followed plan?" column, build this one table:
| Followed plan | Broke plan | |
|---|---|---|
| Won | Your edge working. Repeat. | The dangerous cell. You got paid for a bad habit. |
| Lost | Not a mistake — the cost of doing business. | The real mistake. Fix the behaviour. |
Most traders review the bottom row and ignore the top-right cell entirely. That's backwards: a win you took by breaking your rules trains you to break them again, and the market will stop paying eventually.
Excel, Sheets or Notion?
- Google Sheets — best default. Works on your phone with no setup, which matters because you'll log most trades from your phone.
- Excel — better if you already live in it and want heavier analysis.
- Notion — good if you write longer weekly reviews and want them sitting next to the data. Weaker at calculations.
Any of them beats not journaling. Pick in thirty seconds and move on.
Where a spreadsheet template stops working
Being honest about the limits of what you just built: a spreadsheet records, it doesn't notice. It will happily store fifty trades showing that you doubled size after every loss and never mention it, because nobody writes a formula hunting for a pattern they don't know they have.
That's the whole reason journal apps exist — and the specific gap we built BookinTrade around: it flags revenge trading, sizing up to recover, and moved stops automatically, and it's free. It's our product, so weigh that accordingly; if the spreadsheet is working for you, keep the spreadsheet. If you've abandoned two of them already, the problem probably isn't your discipline.
If you'd rather compare tools first, we reviewed nine of them in the best trading journal apps of 2026, and there's a step-by-step method for making the habit stick regardless of which you choose.
Before you build the sheet, check one thing
Take the free 10-sign revenge-trading test + your 3-step plan — it tells you which columns you actually need. 30 seconds.
Take the free test →
FAQ
What columns should a trading journal template have?
The fourteen above. If you only keep three, keep: why you took it, whether you followed your plan, and what the previous trade was.
How do I calculate R-multiple in a spreadsheet?
Risk is ABS(entry − stop) × size. R-multiple is your result divided by that risk. For a long, it simplifies to (exit − entry) / ABS(entry − stop).
Is a spreadsheet good enough?
For the numbers, yes. It just won't notice your patterns — it records what you type and nothing more.
Excel, Sheets or Notion?
Sheets by default (works on your phone), Excel if you already use it heavily, Notion if you write long reviews. The choice matters much less than logging every trade instead of only the losers.
Keep reading: Free trading journal — what to log and why a spreadsheet isn't enough →
Educational content. Not an investment recommendation. We build BookinTrade, a trading journal app — noted so you can weigh the recommendations accordingly. — The BookinTrade team