How to Keep an Options Trading Journal You Will Actually Use
Reviewed by Leon Moyer - Published October 9, 2026 - Last reviewed October 9, 2026
In this lesson
Record an options trade in a journal with its numbers, its plan and its outcome, and review a month of entries for patterns.
An options trading journal is a record of every trade you make, with its numbers (the contract, the prices, the size and the result) and its reasons (why you entered, what your plan said and whether you followed it), kept so you can learn from your own results.
Earlier lessons in this module lead here. Your position size and your trading plan are only guesses until your journal shows how they work in practice, and the psychology traps are hard to spot one trade at a time but easy to see across a month of entries.
What is a trading journal, and why keep one?
Memory is a poor record keeper. Traders tend to remember their best wins in detail and their worst losses vaguely, which makes it easy to believe a strategy works when it does not. A journal replaces that impression with evidence.
It answers the questions that matter most for a beginner:
- Am I following my plan? If not, how often, and what does breaking it cost?
- Where do my losses come from? Bad luck, bad setups, or bad discipline?
- Which rules should change? You can only judge a rule you have followed consistently.
What should you include in an options trading journal?
A useful entry has two halves: the facts and the story.
The facts describe the trade exactly:
- The contract: underlying, call or put, strike and expiration.
- The dates you opened and closed it, and days to expiration at entry.
- Number of contracts, entry price, exit price and fees.
- The result in dollars, and how the trade ended: closed, expired, exercised or assigned, including any resulting stock position.
The story explains it:
- Why you entered, in one sentence.
- Your planned exits: the profit, loss and time exits from your plan.
- Whether you followed the plan, a simple yes or no, and if no, what you did instead.
- How you felt going in and coming out.
- One lesson, if there is one.
The facts tell you what happened. The story tells you why, and it is the half most traders skip.
Worked example
A journal entry for the XYZ 50 call
Here is the hypothetical trade from the trading plan lesson, logged after it closed. The dates are illustrative: the call is bought on March 3, 2026, 45 calendar days before its April 17, 2026 expiration, and sold on March 19, 12 trading sessions later.
The feeling and lesson rows are valuable. "Wanted to hold for more" is a pattern worth watching: if it shows up often, compare later trades without assuming that holding longer would have helped. Actual fees would reduce the result.
Illustrative and hypothetical. The ticker and prices are invented for teaching, and the figures exclude commissions, fees, margin interest and taxes, which reduce real results. Past or hypothetical outcomes do not indicate future results.
One journal entry: the facts and the story
ONE CONTRACT
XYZ 50 Call, 1 contract
Opened
Mar 3, $2.00, 45d
Planned exits
$3.00 / $1.00 / 21d
Closed
Mar 19, $3.00, 12 sessions
Followed plan?
Yes
($3.00 - $2.00) x 100 = $100 profit, assuming $0 fees
How do you review a trading journal?
A journal you never read is just a diary. Set aside twenty minutes a week and a little longer each month.
Worked example
A month of trades, sorted by one question
In a separate hypothetical month, you have 10 trades logged, with results shown before fees. Position sizes vary: the on-plan trades risk about $200 each, like the example above, while the off-plan ones were larger, so each could lose more than $200. You sort them by the "Followed the plan?" column:
- 7 on plan: 3 wins totaling +$450 and 4 losses totaling -$400. Net: +$50. Average loss: $400 / 4 = $100.
- 3 off plan: you held past your loss exit twice and doubled your size once. All 3 lost, -$1,050 in total. Average loss: $1,050 / 3 = $350.
- Month: +$50 - $1,050 = -$1,000.
The trades that followed the plan roughly broke even. The three that broke it produced the whole month's loss. The entries identify rule-breaking to investigate, but do not prove the plan has an edge or that following it would have prevented every loss. Compare the actual trades with their planned exits and costs before drawing conclusions.
Illustrative and hypothetical. The ticker and prices are invented for teaching, and the figures exclude commissions, fees, margin interest and taxes, which reduce real results. Past or hypothetical outcomes do not indicate future results.
A month of trades, sorted by whether they followed the plan
Average losing trade
Change one rule at a time, and only after enough trades to judge it. Ten trades can show you a discipline problem; they are far too few to prove a strategy works.
How do you keep a trading journal you will actually use?
A journal that asks for too much can be difficult to maintain. A few habits keep one alive:
- Log on the day, while you still remember why you entered and how you felt.
- Keep the story short. Four lines beats a page you will stop writing.
- Let software handle the arithmetic where it can, so your time goes into the story rather than the sums.
- Put the review in your calendar, like any other appointment.
A spreadsheet works if you keep it up. A trading journal app saves the arithmetic. Either way, the best journal is the one you fill in after every trade.
What does a trading journal template look like?
Copy this blank entry into a note, or turn the fields into spreadsheet columns. Record the plan when you open the trade; fill in the outcome and lesson when it closes.
In a spreadsheet, use one row per trade so you can sort by strategy and by whether you followed the plan. The example above is a hypothetical trade, not a record of anyone's actual results.
What comes after Options Foundations?
This lesson completes Options Foundations. You now know what options are, how contracts and the options chain work, what the Greeks and implied volatility do to prices, how to place a trade, and how to size, plan and record it.
The next course, Building a Strategy, puts that foundation to work on repeatable strategies: covered calls, cash-secured puts, protective strategies and vertical spreads, with deeper risk math, trade management and a fuller trading plan. Your journal from this lesson carries into that course.
Check your understanding
What are the two halves of a useful journal entry?
Show answer
The facts (the contract, dates, size, prices, fees and result) and the story (why you entered, your planned exits, whether you followed the plan, and how you felt).
In the monthly review example, where did the month's $1,000 loss come from?
Show answer
From the three trades that broke the plan, which lost $1,050 together. The seven trades that followed the plan made a net $50.
Why should you wait for many trades before changing a strategy rule?
Show answer
Because a handful of trades is too few to tell whether a rule works or whether the results were luck. A small sample can reveal discipline problems, but not prove a strategy.
Key takeaways
- A trading journal records each trade's facts and its story: why you entered, the plan, whether you followed it and how you felt.
- Review weekly for discipline and monthly for patterns, and change one rule at a time.
- Sorting trades by "followed the plan?" often shows where losses really come from.
- Keep it short and log on the day; the best journal is the one you keep.
Common questions
What should be in a trading journal?
For each trade: the contract (underlying, call or put, strike, expiration), the dates, number of contracts, entry and exit prices, fees and the result, plus why you entered, your planned exits, whether you followed the plan and how you felt.
How often should you review your trading journal?
A short review every week and a longer one every month works for most beginners. Weekly, check whether you followed your plan; monthly, look for patterns across enough trades to mean something before changing a rule.
Is a spreadsheet good enough for a trading journal?
Yes, if you keep it up. A spreadsheet can use formulas and imports, but you must check its data and calculations. A journal app can calculate profit and loss for you. The best journal is the one you actually fill in after every trade.
Why do traders keep a journal?
Because memory is selective. A journal shows what actually happened: which trades followed the plan, where losses came from, and which habits cost money, so you can change your rules based on evidence rather than on how you feel.