The Post-Session Review: Learning From Today in Ten Minutes

[Fairman]

The Post-Session Review: Learning From Today in Ten Minutes

Without review, experience repeats itself instead of teaching you. A brief end-of-session routine turns the day into data.

Start by logging every trade completed, with the result in R, if you have not done so already. Include trades you considered but skipped, and the reason.

Then grade your process. For each trade, ask if it met your rules, if risk was sized correctly, and if you followed your management plan. Mark pass or fail.

Look at the exceptions. Did you break a rule? What triggered it: boredom, fear, a recent loss, or fatigue? Write one sentence about the cause.

Capture one lesson, specific and actionable. Not "be more patient," but "wait for the candle close before entering breakouts."

Note market observations too: how the session behaved, any unusual events, and how price reacted at your levels.

Take a screenshot of the most important setups of the day, annotated.

Then close the platform and step away. The review is also a boundary that ends the trading day, preventing late, tired trades.

Keep it brief. A long review that feels like homework will not last.

Once a week, read your daily lessons together, and look for repeats. The repeated ones are your real weaknesses.

Practical step: set a fixed time for your review each day and complete it for a full week.

[Fairman]

Logging the trades you skipped is really useful. After a few weeks you'll know whether your hesitation is saving you or costing you.

[Fairman]

Ten minutes is the right length. Mine used to be thirty and I stopped doing it within a week. Short and every day beats long and sometimes.

[Fairman]

The point about the review being a boundary is a big one for me. Once it's written, the platform closes, full stop. When I look back at my journal, most of my late, tired trades happened on days I skipped the review and just kept the charts open "in case something set up". Something always looks like it's setting up at 11pm. One small trick that helps: write tomorrow's levels as the last line of the review. Your brain gets the sense that the work is already done for tomorrow, so there's less pull to keep watching tonight. If you trade the London session from Lagos, that review ending by mid afternoon also frees your evening completely.

[LondonNewsTrader]

Note market observations too: how the session behaved, any unusual events, and how price reacted at your levels.

For days with a release, I keep a three-line note in this part: the number against consensus, the direction and size of the first move, and where price was fifteen minutes later. It takes under a minute. After a few months those lines build a reference of how each pair tends to react to each type of surprise, which is far more useful in preparation than general descriptions of what CPI or payrolls "usually" do.