Raise your hand if any of you still make diary entry every day! If that's the case, writing a Forex trading journal will be your second nature in no time. But, don't sweat it, this article will guide anyone willing to learn efficient Forex trading!

The Media

First thing first, select either one of these media to start writing and stick to it:

A. Physical trading journal

This traditional methods requires a traditional media such as; pen, marker and papers. Yes, I know, it may not be the fanciest setup you can get but it got the job done in many ways.
There's virtually no restriction on traditional trading journal as your creativity is the only limit

On plus side, you can customize and personalize everything to your heart's content. So, you want a kitty drawing on your check lists, no problem, or crazy big key phrase you quote from your trading idols, why not?

On negative side, you need to construct everything from a scratch. This is a major downside if you're that lazy person who isn't willing to lift a finger on a paper note. Furthermore, organizing traditional media is way more demanding than its electronic counterpart. In simple words, it's going to be nice for creative and neat person. On the other hand, it's going to be a mess for laid back and unorganized people.

B. Electronic trading journal

You want to consult (or share) your Forex trading plans via social media? Or you want to make everything easily organized with no more than a single click? No problemo, you can do it all with the help of electronic trading journal.

Electronic trading journal usually comes in two different accessibility, either offline or online;

Go to Link

1. Offline: you don't need to connect to internet to maintain this trading journal. However, you cannot update or publicize your works as it is only kept exclusively on your machine (unless told otherwise). Spreadsheets like Ms. Excels or Openoffice.org Calc falls into this category.

2. Online/hybrid: some online trading journal requires constant connection to internet, else it won't work. Alternatively, the hybrid one can also switch from offline to online mode to access online database if necessary. Try Tradebench or Google Docs to test it out.

The main advantage of electronic trading journal are its built-in features, and also it’s easy to organize. Everything is already polished so you only need to input simple value to each checkbox, cells, etc. Most importantly, you can easily search and mark the items you want to sort very quickly, no hassle.

However, there's a slight restriction when you want to add unique functionalities or accessories. So, you can't force spreadsheet to display kitten drawings or big quotes in fancy configuration without "hacking" the source code. Compared to traditional media, this electronic trading journal gives you an edge in its readily available resources and accessibility. Which in hindsight, does the all the hard work for you. So, pick electronic Forex trading journal if you want sheer practicality in trade off for personal unique touch.