What belongs in Thursday’s book, and what belongs in the weekly reread
Daily notes and the Sunday reread are different jobs. Mixing them is why traders either write novels or stop writing at all.
Field notes
Pages written after sittings, not before them
These notes come out of the Harbourneford desk: how to timestamp a session, how stop edits hide, when to put the pen down. They are not market commentary.
Marking levels after the close without inventing confluence
After 16:35 every wick looks like a level you meant to use. Technical analysis training that happens only in hindsight is just decoration. Here is a rule for the pen.
Stop-loss edits: how they hide in the book
Traders rarely write “I dragged the stop.” They write a new story about the level. The journal still shows the edit if you know where to look.
A fifteen-minute close: the shortest review that still counts
If the review only happens on quiet Fridays, it is not a habit. A timed quarter-hour after the cash close will hold more truth than a Sunday essay.
Write the session in the order it happened
Most journals are written backwards from the P&L. The close looks clean because the ugly middle has been sanded off. Here is how to put the minutes back in sequence.