You have decided to keep a trading journal. Now you are stuck on the tool. Excel, Google Sheets, Notion, a notebook, or one of the many journal apps?
The honest answer: start with whatever you will open every day. Then switch when the tool starts holding you back.
What does a spreadsheet do well?
It is free, and you probably know how to use it already. You can add any column you like, in any order. Your data sits in a file you own.
For the first month of journaling, that is plenty. You need a row per trade with the date, the market, your entry, stop, exit and result. Add a column for what you checked before entering and one for whether you followed your rules. What to track in a trading journal has the full short list.
A spreadsheet also forces you to type each trade by hand. That sounds like a downside, and it is partly. It also makes you look at every trade once more, which is where a lot of learning starts.
Where does a spreadsheet start to struggle?
Not with storing trades. With answering questions about them.
Say you want to know whether your trades did better when the bigger chart was trending. In a spreadsheet you build a filter and a formula, and then check it works.
Now you want to know about three things at once. The trend was up, price was at your level, and you entered on a closed candle. Every combination like that needs its own filter, and each one is a new chance to make a mistake.
Many people who journal in a spreadsheet never get that far. The data is there. The answers are not. Journaling every trade but not improving? is about exactly that gap.
Spreadsheets also make it easy to drift. You add a column in March, rename one in April, and by June your old trades and new trades no longer line up.
What about Notion or a notebook?
Notion is good for notes and screenshots, and many traders like how it looks. Counting and comparing trades in it is even harder than in a spreadsheet.
A paper notebook is great for one thing: writing how you felt and what you were thinking, right after the trade. It is weak at everything involving numbers. Some traders keep a notebook for thoughts and a spreadsheet or app for the numbers.
When does an app make sense?
When the questions you want to ask outgrow the tool. Usually that is once you have a few dozen trades and start wondering which parts of your trading actually work.
A good app saves you building the analysis yourself. It works out your result in R for each trade. R is your result in units of risk: win twice what you risked and that trade is two R. It shows your numbers by setup, by market and by time of day, and keeps every trade in the same format.
What should you look for in an app?
Skip the feature lists and ask a few plain questions.
Can it answer "which of the things I check made money?" Many journals show your profit, win rate and a chart of your account. Fewer let you see how trades did when a specific condition was there, or a specific combination of them.
Does it say how many trades are behind each number? A setup that won five out of five sounds great until you notice it is five trades.
Does it match how you get trades in? Some apps import straight from your broker. Others need manual entry or a file upload. Neither is wrong, but know which you are buying.
Can you get your data out? You should be able to export your trades if you ever leave.
Is it worth paying for a journal?
Only if it changes what you do. A paid app you open twice is worth less than a free spreadsheet you open every day.
A fair test: after a month, can you name one thing you changed in your trading because of what the journal showed you? If yes, the tool is earning its keep, whatever it cost.
Questions people also ask
Is Excel good enough for a trading journal?
Yes, for logging and simple totals. It gets hard once you want to compare trades by condition or combinations of conditions.
Google Sheets or Excel?
Either works. Sheets is free and works on your phone, which helps if you log on the go. Excel is stronger for heavy formulas.
Do I need broker sync?
It saves typing. It does not record what you checked before the trade, which is often the most useful part. You still have to add that yourself.
Can I start in a spreadsheet and move later?
Yes. Many apps, EdgeFlow included, can bring in past trades from a CSV file, the plain export a spreadsheet can save.
Read next:
- How to Keep a Trading Journal (and Not Quit After a Week)
- What Is R in Trading? R-Multiples in Plain Words
EdgeFlow does not connect to brokers. You log trades by hand, step by step, or bring them in from a CSV file. Imported trades arrive without your checks, so you add those per trade. What it adds is the counting: which of the things you check, and which combinations, came with your winners and your losers. Compare the ways to keep a journal. If a spreadsheet already answers your questions, keep it.