The Routine: Daily Plan, Journal, Weekly Review

Profitability is a routine, not an insight

There is no new concept in this module. Everything here is scheduling, recording and reviewing — and it is the module that decides whether the previous fourteen survive an ordinary week.

The reason is unglamorous. The knowledge you now have degrades in a specific, predictable way: not by being forgotten, but by being skipped under mild time pressure. The bias check gets shortened. The 3:1 measurement becomes an estimate. The journal entry waits until the weekend and then never happens. Nothing dramatic occurs; six weeks later you are trading the way you did in 2019 while believing you are trading the way you learned in Tier 3.

A routine is the countermeasure, and it has three parts: a schedule, a log, and a review that only looks at one number.

Concept checkd-m15-01

How does everything you learned in Tiers 1–3 actually get lost?

• Not by being forgotten, but by being skipped under mild time pressure — the bias check shortens, the 3:1 becomes an estimate, the journal waits until the weekend and never happens.
• By forgetting the definitions.
• By the market changing so the concepts stop working.
• By not trading often enough to stay sharp.

Check answer

The swing routine — your default

The full interactive version, with your local times and a printable checklist, is at /routine. First, one example week run end to end; then what each block is for.

▶ Animation The routine: one week, run in order ↻ Replay

Weekend, 45 minutes: the only analysis of the week. NEUTRAL is a valid verdict.

Each day, a 20–30 minute bias check. Nothing to do? Log it — a no-trade day is a completed day.

Price reaches the array inside the window. The limit fills; the stop is where you wrote it.

Then manage — don't improve. You are waiting for time, not ticks.

Partial at the first opposing array; the rest runs to the named target.

Friday, 20 minutes: violations first — then the three counts, then R.

One edit to an existing rule. Not a new rule.

Schedule, log, review. The M15 test: ten journaled days in a row, zero violations.

Weekend · 45 minutes — set the week

This is the only block where you do analysis. Everything else in the week executes what you decided here.

• Monthly, weekly and daily charts on your one pair. Run M10’s three-part test at each level and write the verdict, including NEUTRAL.
• Mark the dealing range and its equilibrium.
• Mark the external liquidity above and below — the old high and old low the week is likely reaching for.
• Write one sentence: which half of the matrix am I shopping from this week, and why.
• Note the days carrying event risk.

If the verdict is NEUTRAL, the week is finished before it starts. Write it down and close the laptop. That is a completed, successful weekend.

Daily · 20–30 minutes — the bias check

• Has the daily close changed the verdict you wrote at the weekend? Usually not.
• Is price in the half you are shopping from? At equilibrium ⇒ nothing to do.
• If price has reached your array: is the limit still where the plan says, and does it still clear 3:1?
• If the bias is NONE, close the laptop. This is the highest-value habit in the system and the one the site is built to reward — a logged no-trade day is a completed day.

On a fill — manage, do not improve

• The stop is where you wrote it. It never moves away from entry. Ever.
• Partial at the first opposing array; the remainder runs to the liquidity you named.
• You are holding for days. Intraday movement against you is not information.

The whole of trade management, in two sentences

Don’t watch for pips or price, just watch the time. Once you enter a trade and set a stop loss, all you need to do is wait time for it to move.

Friday · 20 minutes — the review

Four questions, in this order, and the order is the point:

1. Were there rule violations? If yes, that is the week’s only finding. Fix the process before looking at anything else — P&L included.
2. Trades taken, skipped by rule, missed. Three counts, three different things.
3. Expectancy over the last twenty, in R — your average R per trade. Under twenty trades this is noise and the journal says so.
4. One sentence on what you will do differently — an edit to an existing rule in /plan, not a new rule.

Concept checkd-m15-02

It is Wednesday. Your weekend verdict was NEUTRAL. You open the charts and something looks like a setup. What does the routine say?

• Close the laptop. Analysis belongs to the weekend, and mid-week analysis is how a plan becomes an opinion again.
• Re-run the cascade — if it now passes, take it.
• Take it on a smaller size as an experiment.
• Note it and take it next week if it is still there.

Check answer

Concept checkd-m15-03

You did the bias check, the answer was NONE, and you did not trade. What goes in the journal?

• An entry — a no-trade day, logged as a completed day.
• Nothing — there is no trade to log.
• A note in the plan instead.
• Log it only if you were tempted to trade.

Check answer

The journal is the instrument, not the paperwork

The journal is how Tier 4 is graded. Its fields mirror two templates you already own — Month 12’s trade sheet and Day 9 – Trade Sheet.xlsx — so it is your own sheet made computable.

Three design decisions, and each is deliberate:

The hero number is rule-violation count, not P&L. It is the number you can actually control. P&L over twenty trades is mostly variance; compliance over twenty trades is entirely you. Putting compliance first is a pedagogical choice, and the live gate is measured on it.

A violation is a worse outcome than a loss. A loss inside the rules is a budgeted cost (M13). A violation is an unbudgeted, unbounded risk that happened to work out this time. A rule violation on a winning trade is still a violation, and the journal tags it as one — which is the entry you will most want to fudge, and the one that matters most.

Three counts, not one. Trades taken, skipped by rule, and missed are different events. Most journals record only the first, which makes restraint invisible and turns the log into a record of your worst weeks.

What you actually control

You must recognize and admit that you cannot control the market, but you CAN control your own inputs and how you will react to price movement.

Look at every trade in terms of probabilities and not absolutes.

Concept checkd-m15-04

You broke a rule — entered outside your window — and the trade closed at +3R. How is it logged?

• As a VIOLATION. A rule violation on a winning trade is still a violation, and this is the entry that matters most.
• As compliant, since the reasoning turned out to be right.
• As a violation, but excluded from the R record.
• Half a violation, since no money was lost.

Check answer

Concept checkd-m15-05

Why does the Friday review look at violations before P&L?

• Because compliance over twenty trades is entirely within your control while P&L over twenty trades is mostly variance — so it is the only one of the two you can act on.
• Because P&L is unimportant.
• Because violations are easier to count.
• Because violations always cause losses.

Check answer

The hard limits, and why they are numbers

Limit	Trigger	Consequence
Per trade	0.25–0.5% learning · 1.0% ceiling ever	computed, never estimated
After any loss	—	halve risk until recouped
Daily	−1%	stop for the day
Weekly	−3%	stop for the week
Monthly	−6%	stop and review before trading again

A limit you decide in the moment is not a limit. The point of writing −1% down is that the decision is made now, calm, by you — and executed later by a version of you who has just lost twice and wants it back.

The seven keys, as he lists them

THE 7 KEYS TO SUCCESSFUL FOREX TRADING

1. Understanding of the asset class
2. Learning to think independently
3. Developing & adhering to your personal trader profile
4. Trading your personal comprehensive trading plan
5. Utilize & exercise impeccable equity management
6. Don’t assume you know where price will go
7. Think in terms of probabilities, not absolutes

Note that five of the seven are about process and temperament, and none of them is about finding a better entry.

On signal services and other people's opinions

Millionaires and elite traders do not follow fad indicators, signal services, market opinions of others, etc. but rather adhere to their own independent trading model.

Concept checkd-m15-06select all that apply

The M15 assessment is "ten consecutive journaled days with zero rule violations." Which readings are correct? (Select all.)

• Most of those ten days will be no-trade days, and they count.
• One violation restarts the count.
• A losing day does not break the streak.
• Ten days of demo counts the same as ten days live.
• You can trade live once you have passed it.

Check answer

The assessment: ten consecutive days, zero violations

This module’s assessment is not a quiz. It is:

Ten consecutive journaled days with zero rule violations.

Read it carefully. It says days, not trades — most of those days will be no-trade days, and they count. It says zero, and it means zero. And it says consecutive, so one violation restarts the count.

That is deliberately hard, and it is the last thing between you and the capstone. Nothing else on this site is scored so strictly, because nothing else predicts what happens with real money as directly.

The decision rule

Decision rule DR-15

When

Any trading day, from the weekend prep to the Friday review.

Then

Run the blocks in order: weekend — analyse once and write the verdict including NEUTRAL; daily — check the bias in 20 minutes, and if it is NONE close the laptop; on a fill — manage exactly as written and wait for time, not for ticks; end of period — log the entry in R with a compliance tag, including the no-trade days; Friday — review violations first, then the three counts, then expectancy.

Otherwise

If the day was not journaled, the day did not happen — and that is itself the violation to log. If a hard limit was hit, the platform closes regardless of what is on the chart. If you find yourself doing analysis mid-week, stop: analysis belongs to the weekend, and mid-week analysis is how a plan becomes an opinion again.