The weekly trading review: a 20-minute routine that compounds
A simple, repeatable weekly review for traders — what to look at, which metrics matter, and how to turn last week’s trades into next week’s edge in about 20 minutes.
The traders who improve aren’t the ones with the best entries — they’re the ones who review the same way every week. A review doesn’t need to be long or complicated. Twenty focused minutes every weekend, done consistently, beats a three-hour deep-dive you do once and never repeat.
The routine, step by step
Block a fixed slot — most traders do best on a weekend morning — and run the same checklist every time so it becomes automatic:
- Headline numbers first: net P&L, win rate, and expectancy for the week.
- Best and worst trades: what made the winners work and the losers hurt?
- Patterns: which symbols, setups, days, and hours made or lost money?
- Rule-breaks: tag any trade that broke your sizing, stop, or daily-loss rules.
- One change: pick a single, concrete adjustment for next week.
Why “one change” matters
The mistake most reviewers make is generating a long list of resolutions they never act on. Force yourself to choose exactly one change — “no new trades after a second loser,” or “cut my AAPL size in half.” One change you actually implement beats ten you forget by Tuesday.
A review isn’t about reliving last week — it’s about writing one rule for next week.
Let the data do the prep
The reason most weekly reviews fail is that gathering the numbers takes longer than reading them. That’s backwards. When your journal already shows P&L by symbol and hour, your expectancy, and which trades broke a rule — like MyTradeLens does automatically — the 20 minutes goes entirely to judgment, where it belongs, instead of to bookkeeping.