Trading Plan Template: The Sections Worth Writing Down

[FXS Prop Desk]

A trading plan does not need to be long, but it should answer the questions you would otherwise answer in the heat of the moment.

Sections worth including:

1. Markets and sessions: which pairs, which hours, and which hours you never trade.
2. Setups: each one described precisely enough that someone else could recognise it on a chart.
3. Risk: per trade, per day, per week, and what changes during a drawdown.
4. Execution: order types, maximum spread, what you do if the platform disconnects.
5. News: which events you avoid and for how long.
6. Review: when you journal, when you do weekly and monthly reviews.
7. Change process: how a rule gets changed — ideally only after a review, never mid-session.

The last section is the one most plans lack, and it is the reason many plans get silently ignored after a few weeks.

What is the one rule in your plan that you find hardest to keep?

[Shadow Trader]

The change process section is the one I add first now. Without a written path for editing rules, I rewrote risk mid session three times last year and called it flexibility.

My plan fits on two pages: pairs and hours, three named setups, risk layers, max spread, news blackout list, and a review cadence. If a setup cannot be recognised by someone else from the text, it is not ready.

Hardest rule for me is the daily stop after two losers. I still feel the urge to flat the day with a third try, so the plan forces a platform logout rather than a soft reminder.

Disconnect protocol matters for scalpers more than people admit. Mine is flatten via mobile if desktop drops for more than ninety seconds during London.

Which section do you find yourself ignoring first when the week gets busy? For me it was review until I put it on the Sunday calendar as a fixed block.