Templates exist to remove friction from review.
When I finish a session, the hardest part is not knowing what to look at. It is knowing where to start and when to stop. Templates solve that problem. They give review a shape so that reflection doesn’t sprawl or stall.
Each template in this system serves a specific time horizon. None of them are meant to be exhaustive. They are meant to be repeatable and light enough that I actually use them.
Per-Trade Review
The per-trade review captures execution truth while it is still raw. This review is completed immediately after each trade, before outcome bias, narrative repair, or emotional smoothing can take hold.
Its purpose is not reflection. Its purpose is classification. Each trade is assessed in isolation for:
- Entry validity
- Execution quality
- Management decisions
- Exit alignment
This review is intentionally fast and binary. It answers a single question:
Was this trade taken and managed according to the system I claim to be trading?
Per-trade reviews do not seek lessons or meaning. They create clean data that feeds the daily, weekly, and monthly reviews. Once complete, the trade is closed. If something matters, it will surface later as a pattern, not a story.
Per-Trade Review TemplateStep 8 — The Drill Scoring System (this is mandatory)The daily review
captures the session while it is still close.
This takes the form of a Day Summary Note, which serves two purposes inside the same bounded page:
- Premarket orientation: a structured container for thesis, risk awareness, and battle plans.
- End-of-day consolidation: a lightweight capture of what actually unfolded before memory edits the experience.
The goal here is not depth. The goal is clarity, alignment, and closure. This page anchors the day from start to finish:
- What I expected
- What I did
- What stood out
It intentionally avoids detailed trade analysis. Individual trades are reviewed separately, immediately after execution, using a dedicated per-trade review process. The Day Summary Note remains intact even if no trades are taken. Its purpose is to track decision context, not just outcomes.
Day Summary Note TemplateThe weekly review
The weekly review is where patterns are detected and named.
This review consolidates the week’s per-trade and daily data into repeatable behaviors, execution tendencies, and structural outcomes. Its purpose is pattern recognition, not self-evaluation. The weekly review:
- Aggregates per-trade classifications and tags
- Compares execution and behavior across sessions
- Separates signal from variance
- Identifies what is repeating, not what was memorable
No conclusions are drawn from single trades or single days. Only observations that recur across the week qualify as information. This review is the only layer where insights are generated.
The monthly review may act on these insights; the weekly review may not. If something feels important but does not repeat, it is noted and released.
Weekly Review TemplateThe monthly review
This review is completed at the end of the month to evaluate system integrity and compounding, not individual performance. Its inputs are:
- Weekly reviews
- Repeated execution and behavioral patterns
- Aggregated statistics
The monthly review does not introduce new insights. It only acts on patterns that were already observed consistently at the weekly level. If something appeared once, it is noise. If it appeared weekly, it is information. If it persisted across the month, it earns system-level consideration. The outcome of this review is restraint, not activity:
- Few changes
- Clear mandates
- Preserved edges
Each template is intentionally bounded. When a review is complete, I stop. If something deserves deeper attention, it becomes a candidate for integration rather than an excuse to overanalyze.
Templates live as subpages linked from this section. Stop 7 defines their purpose and scope. The details live where they can evolve without destabilizing the structure.
Used consistently, these templates create rhythm. They ensure that no day is ignored, no week drifts by unnoticed, and no month passes without perspective. Review becomes part of the work rather than something I postpone until problems appear.