Lessons › Trading psychology and process › The weekly review: turning notes into rules
World 9 · Trading psychology and process · lesson 13 · level 4
The weekly review: turning notes into rules
Once a week, look back at your trades, find your biggest leak and fix one thing at a time.
In one line
One small leak can sink a ship. Which leak is sinking your week?
Explained simply
A weekly review is like a coach watching the week's match footage. Instead of fixing ten things at once, the coach picks the one mistake that cost the most and practises that. Next week, you check whether it improved.
The lesson
A weekly review sums up results in R, rule-following, best and worst setups, and emotional patterns from the journal. The aim is to find the biggest leak, such as trading into news or moving stops, and write one specific rule to fix it. A rule is specific when anyone could check whether you followed it, such as 'no new trades 15 minutes before high-impact news'. Changing one thing at a time makes it possible to see whether the change helped.
A worked example
Illustrative example: a week of 10 trades has 3 wins at +2R and 7 losses at -1R: 3 x 2 - 7 x 1 = -1R, with a win rate of 3 x 100 / 10 = 30%. The journal shows 3 of the losses were trades entered in the 15 minutes before high-impact news, costing 3 x 1 = 3R. Without those trades, the week would have been -1 - (-3) = +2R. The biggest leak is clear, so next week's one new rule is: no new trades 15 minutes before high-impact news.
The same idea at four levels
- Beginner. Once a week, look back at all your trades.
- Foundation. Add up your results in R and count how many trades broke a rule.
- Intermediate. Find the biggest leak, the habit that cost the most R, and write one rule to fix it.
- Advanced. Make the rule checkable, like 'no trades in the first 15 minutes', not 'be more disciplined', so next week's journal can show whether you kept it.
- Expert. Change one rule at a time and judge it over several weeks, because one week of results is too small a sample to tell a better rule from luck.
Mistakes to avoid
- Changing several rules at once, so you cannot tell which change worked.
- Writing vague goals instead of rules you can check.
- Skipping the review after a bad week, when it matters most.
Check yourself
How often does the review in this lesson happen?
Once a week. Weekly is often enough to learn and rare enough to see patterns.
What is a 'leak'?
A habit that keeps costing you. Leaks drain results quietly, week after week.
Which is a specific rule?
No new trades 15 minutes before high-impact news. Anyone could check whether it was followed.
How many rules should you change after one review?
One. One change at a time keeps the evidence clear.
3 wins at +2R and 7 losses at -1R. What is the total?
-1R. 6R of wins minus 7R of losses is -1R.
Goal of this lesson: Run a weekly review that turns journal data into one or two concrete rule changes.