How To Use The Edgewonk Sessions Tab – Usage Examples From A Trader’s Journal

During our last Edgewonk trading journal review (click here to watch), we noticed that the Edgewonk user was making great use of the Session tab in his trading journal. In this article, we want to highlight this trader’s good practices and help other traders along the way to get inspiration for using the Session feature in their journal as well.

A quick recap of the Edgewonk Sessions tab

To begin with, let’s revisit the Sessions tab and remind ourselves what the Sessions tab is doing and what the idea behind it is:

• The Sessions tab is a place where traders can capture their thoughts, ideas, observations and the lessons they learned. It is the completion of the analytical parts of Edgewonk. 
• After every trading day, week and/or month, traders can create a new session and write down their notes and the lessons the market taught them or that they learned by observing themselves and their trading.
• The traders can rate each session based on their overall approach, their level of discipline or other factors they choose.
• Finally, they get a performance summary for the duration of their session.

Edgewonk is more than just a regular trading journal. It is more of a trader development suite where emotional- and mindset-driven features meet effective analytical components to provide all information and tools a trader needs.

Sessions examples

Now let’s take a closer look at the user’s Session entries as they serve as a great example of how a trader could use this feature. Although it’s not a must, this specific trader regularly entered a new session at the end of each trading day and sometimes at the end of the week as well. 

The entries can serve as reminders. When the trades didn’t work out, but the traders followed their plan, it is worth capturing it because it highlights the importance of process-oriented thinking. Not all winners are good and not all losses are necessarily bad. 

Improving your edge through positive reassurance. If you notice that you are leaving money on the table, potentially, it can also be an important finding. Stay confident and trust in your edge if your Edgewonk journal confirms it.

Remind yourself of what is working well for you. It’s important to look for commonalities in your winning trades as well so that you can do more of it.

Here, the trader is having a hard time and needs to identify their negative patterns. It’s critical to raise awareness of the mistakes a trader keeps repeating. Without awareness, behavior cannot be changed. 

We can see that the trader seems to have issues with letting winners run, which is also a common theme we identified during his actual trading journal review (link above). Despite his overall positive performance, this seems to be the biggest issue and they need to remind themselves constantly. 

Traders who do not have a journal and a way to capture their thoughts are not likely to change their behavior because they will quickly forget what the trades taught them. The Sessions tab in Edgewonk is the optimal solution to close this gap.

Positivity is important and it will keep a trader going. Once a trader realizes that they have found their edge and that they just need to execute it, they can trade with a lot of confidence. Use the Sessions to remind yourself of that and use it as a motivational tool.

The trader has captured a similar thought here which reminds themselves of letting the probabilities work out. Once you have an edge, staying patient and sticking to the rules is all that matters. Don’t become over-confident and do more of what got you here in the first place.

FOMO (the fear of missing out) is a big problem for many traders and if you recognize that you are driven by FOMO, you have to find ways how to cope with it. Stick to taking the best setups only and follow your rules.

The trader entered dozens of sessions into their Edgewonk trading journal and over time the Sessions tab acts almost like a diary. You can scroll through your entries, follow your development and thought process and find patterns in your behavior. 

We recommend creating one session at the end of each week for starters. If you are motivated to do more, you can certainly do that and capture your thoughts at the end of each trading day, as well. Most importantly, you must find consistency and starting slow is usually the best approach that works well over time.

Happy journaling!