Bit of background first for context; been trading for a while but gave up my full time job to focus on it full time in September 2013. I decided working for someone else in an office for ten hours a day with little time for anything for myself besides eating and sleeping was not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Having done this already for five years I decided as a birthday present to myself I would leave my job and do something I enjoyed. My last day was on my 24th birthday.
I have always kept a written journal, despite being relatively tech savvy compared to people I know I've still always preferred pen and paper, hard copy books rather than say a kindle, newspapers rather than online media.
As Big Mike and others have repeatedly said, keeping a journal is hugely valuable, some type of record keeping is definitely essential. Even if not a 'journal' as such, the recording of statistics help identify patterns. For example a major issue for me was poor performance during lunch time, another was pulling orders even though it was a good trade location.
I decided to put this online for a few reasons;
1) I have recently taken up using volume profile, I was previously using support/resistance lines that I drew myself. The problem I had was a lack of confidence, also where do I place the order? On the line, just before the line in case price doesn't quite reach? Just after in case there is a spike through before a reverse in the right direction? I thought using volume profile would at least clearly give areas of clear rejection.
2) Trading is a lonely endeavour and so incredibly difficult when on your own, I am hoping that others here more experienced than myself will critique my trades, trade ideas, pre-market prep, spelling, grammar or whatever. Please be harsh, I'm no shrinking violet and anything you can say that may help would be appreciated more than you can ever possibly know.
Some also say an online journal brings accountability, well if you ever have an issue like that just tell your other half what you are doing. The one and only time I revenge traded was early on, I lost 500 in one day and when she asked why all I could say was 'I don't know what went wrong'. Nothing worse than having someone close to you trust you with your joint savings and then be so disappointed. 500 isn't a lot but at that point in my trading career I think we were both expecting to be using my trading PC like a broken cash machine than just keeps spewing out money. Funny the things we dream of when we start.
Anyway that's enough of that, apologies for the length of my post, hopefully someone somewhere will find my journal of interest, or possibly even helpful.