How to Review Your Trades Weekly in 20 Minutes

How to review your trades comes down to one 20-minute session a week: pull every trade into one list, check a handful of core numbers, split the trades into plan-following and plan-breaking, put a dollar figure on each mistake pattern, and finish by writing one rule change for next week. That is the whole job. The rest of this guide shows how to do each step in a fixed time box.

It is written for futures and prop firm traders, from a first evaluation to a funded account. Every figure below is hypothetical and in USD. The numbers show the method, not real results, and nothing here promises profit.

How do you review your trades in 20 minutes?

Work through seven steps in a fixed order and give each a time limit. The order matters: facts first, then rules, then money, then one decision. Skipping to "what should I trade differently?" before you know what actually happened is how reviews turn into opinions.

Set a timer. A review that has no end is a review you will skip next week. Twenty focused minutes beats a two-hour session you do once and abandon.

What do you need before you start?

You need the week's trades in one place with the same fields every time: date and time, instrument, side, size, entry, exit, net result after fees, and a plan tag. Without a complete list, every number in the review is wrong by an unknown amount, and you will not know which way.

If you keep a spreadsheet, the trading journal template for futures traders has columns you can reuse. The one column that makes this review fast is a plan tag, a simple "followed plan" or "broke plan" mark you add right after each trade, while you still remember. If you did not tag during the week, tag now from your notes, and be strict.

Which numbers should you check first?

Start with the plain totals: net P&L, number of trades, win rate, average win, average loss, and your largest win and loss. These take about three minutes and tell you the shape of the week before you look at any single trade. Write them as one line so you can compare week to week.

Here is a hypothetical week:

24 trades, net -$120, win rate 50%, average win $140, average loss $150, largest loss -$310.

Do not stop here. A flat result with a 50% win rate looks like a coin flip. It tells you nothing about why the week ended where it did, and that is the trap of reviewing by totals alone. One thing worth noting already: the largest loss is more than twice the average loss. That is a lead, and the next step will chase it.

If you track R-multiples, add average R for the week to the line. The guide on how to calculate R-multiple in trading covers the formula. If you do not, dollars are fine as long as your size and stop distance stay roughly constant.

Did you follow your plan?

Split the week's trades into two groups: those that matched your written plan and those that did not. Then total each group separately. This one split is the most useful 4 minutes in the review, because it separates a bad strategy from bad execution, and those need opposite fixes.

Using the same hypothetical week:

The week lost $120, yet the 17 plan-following trades made $1,020. The strategy was not the problem. Seven trades that broke the plan lost $1,140. Without the split, this trader might have blamed the setup, changed it on Monday, and left the real leak open.

Be honest about what counts as "broke the plan." A trade that followed your rules and lost is a good trade. A trade that broke your rules and won is a bad trade that got lucky, and it belongs in the plan-breaking column. Counting lucky rule breaks as wins is how a bad habit gets rewarded.

What did your mistakes cost you?

Take the plan-breaking trades and group them by pattern, then total each group in dollars. The ranked list shows which habit to fix first. Four minutes is enough, because you are sorting seven trades, not reanalyzing the market.

Each trade is assigned to its main pattern here so the table adds up. In real data one trade can carry more than one tag, and that is fine, as long as you say how you count and stay consistent from week to week.

Now the lead from step 2 makes sense. The largest loss, -$310, was the single oversized trade. One decision about size cost about twice the average loss. The revenge entries are the bigger total, but the oversized trade is the biggest single hole.

For more on the first and third patterns, see the guide on overtrading in futures, which covers how to set a daily cap you can keep.

Where a tool helps. Steps 3 and 4 are where software saves the most time. In Traderilla, every trade you log or import is checked automatically for five patterns: revenge trades, cool-down violations, overtrading, consecutive losses and oversized positions. The dollar cost of each pattern is ranked for you; the free plan shows your most expensive one. The app has no automatic flag for early exits, moved stops or chased entries, so you would tag those yourself. It warns you with the cool-down banner and, on Pro and Elite, the pre-trade checklist, but it cannot block or change a real order.

Which trades deserve a second look?

Read three trades in detail: your best, your worst, and any trade that felt wrong even if it made money. Spend about one minute on each. You are not looking for a new strategy. You are looking for what you were thinking right before you clicked.

For each of the three, write two lines:

1. What was happening in the 5 minutes before entry (a loss, a missed move, a quiet tape, a news release)?
2. What would you do differently, in one sentence?

Do not skip the best trade. A big winner is the one you are most likely to misread. Check whether it followed your plan or whether you got paid for a rule break. If it broke the plan, it goes in the mistakes column no matter how good the P&L looks, and it should worry you more than a loss does.

What do time, setup and day of week tell you?

Spend two minutes scanning three cuts: when you traded, what setup you used, and which day. You are hunting for one or two leads, not conclusions. A week is a small sample, so treat anything you see as a hypothesis to watch, not a rule to adopt.

For example, if five of your seven plan-breaking trades happened after 2 p.m. Eastern, that is worth noting. If it shows up again next week and the week after, it becomes a real pattern and a candidate for a rule such as "no new entries after 2 p.m." If it happens once, write it down and move on.

When your journal holds a month or more of trades, the cuts get more reliable. For how to build up that history in a way you will keep, see the guide on what a trading journal is and how to keep one.

How do you turn the review into one change?

End every review by writing a single rule for next week, in specific, testable words. One change is the whole point. A review that produces five resolutions produces none, because you cannot tell which one worked, and you will drop most by Wednesday.

Good rules are concrete and checkable at the moment of the decision:

• "No new trade within 30 minutes of a loss."
• "Maximum 6 trades per day, no exceptions."
• "Never more than 2 contracts, even on an A setup."

Pick the change by cost, not by feeling. In the hypothetical week the ranked list says the revenge entries cost $540, the oversized trade cost $310 and the extra trades past the cap cost $290. A sensible choice is the rule that targets the biggest number: a cool-down rule. Write it down, put it where you will see it before the open, and next week's review starts by checking whether you kept it.

What mistakes ruin a weekly review?

Most failed reviews have one of five causes, and all are easy to avoid once you know them. The common thread is that the review stops being a decision tool and becomes a ritual.

• Reviewing only the losers. Wins that broke your rules are the most dangerous trades you take, and you will miss them if you only open the red ones.
• Judging the week by P&L alone. A losing week with clean execution is better than a winning week full of rule breaks. Grade the process and the money separately.
• Skipping the bad weeks. Losing weeks hold the most information, and they are the ones you most want to avoid opening.
• Changing too much. Five new rules after one bad week is a reaction, not a review.
• Reviewing on tilt. If you review right after a bad session, your read of your own trades will be harsh and distorted. Wait until you can look at the list calmly.

If you are in the middle of a losing run, the review is the same, but the plan for the days ahead needs more care. The guide on what to do after a losing streak covers how to size down and rebuild.

Key takeaways

• A weekly review fits in 20 minutes if you use a timer and a fixed order: pull the trades, check the numbers, split by plan, price the mistakes, read key trades, scan the cuts, pick one change.
• Split plan-following from plan-breaking trades and total each group. It separates a bad strategy from bad execution.
• Put a dollar cost on each mistake pattern and fix the biggest one first.
• Count lucky rule breaks as mistakes, even when they made money.
• A week is a small sample. Treat time, setup and day findings as leads to watch, not rules.
• End with one specific, testable rule, and start next week's review by checking whether you kept it.
• Use net results after fees, and make sure no trades are missing before you trust any number.

Frequently asked questions

How often should you review your trades?

Weekly is the best starting point for most traders. A week holds enough trades to show patterns, and it is recent enough that you still remember what you were thinking. Add a five-minute check after each session to tag trades, and do a longer review of your plan once a month.

How long should a weekly trade review take?

About 20 minutes if you tag your trades during the week and use a timer. If you did not tag anything, expect 30 to 40 minutes the first time, because you have to reconstruct the plan check from memory. It gets faster as the habit sets in. These times are practical starting points, so adjust them to your own trade volume.

What should you look for when reviewing your trades?

Look for rule breaks first, then money. Check which trades broke your plan, what each pattern cost in dollars, and what was happening just before your worst entries. Then scan time of day, setup and day of week for repeated leads. Finish with one change, not a long list.

Should you review winning trades too?

Yes. A winning trade that broke your plan is the most dangerous trade you can take, because the result rewards the habit. Reviewing wins also shows you what a clean, plan-following trade looks like, which gives you something to copy.

What if you only take a few trades a week?

The method still works, but your conclusions are weaker. With five or six trades, one trade can swing every number, so lean on the plan check and your notes and be slow to draw statistical conclusions. Combine several weeks into a monthly review once you have more data.

Do you need software to review your trades?

No. A spreadsheet with a plan tag and a few columns is enough, and many traders start there. Software helps when the manual steps, such as flagging patterns and totaling their cost, become the reason you skip the review. Whatever you use, the habit matters more than the tool.

Traderilla imports your Tradovate or NinjaTrader CSV exports, flags mistakes like overtrading and revenge trades automatically and shows what each pattern costs you in dollars. Start free with no card (the free plan shows your most expensive pattern), or try Elite free for 7 days (then $59/month unless you cancel).