How to Build a One-Page Trading Plan (With Template)

A sixty-page trading plan is a document. A one-page trading plan is a tool. The difference shows at 14:32 with a position open and a headline dropping: the document is in a folder somewhere, the tool is in your head, because it is short enough to live there. Plans rarely fail at the writing stage. They fail at the recall stage, so build for recall.

The plan is a decision cache

Everything on the page is a decision made once, while calm, so it never has to be made live, while not. Which markets. Which hours. Which setups count. How much risk. What happens after entry. When the plan itself gets reviewed. Six decisions, six blocks, one page. And one default underneath them all: any situation the blocks do not cover means staying flat. That seventh rule costs nothing and covers everything.

The six blocks

Markets: the instruments you trade and, just as loudly, the ones you do not. Two or three instruments is plenty; each addition multiplies the screening work and divides the attention.

Sessions: the hours you are allowed to enter, chosen from when your markets actually move; the session guide is the reference. An entry outside the window is a rule break even when it wins.

Setups: each one named and defined sharply enough that a stranger could mark them on a chart. "Price action looked good" is not a setup, it is a mood.

Risk: per-trade risk, a daily stop, and a cap on simultaneous positions. These numbers get derived from the account's rules, not from ambition; the arithmetic comes two sections down.

Management: the partial, break-even and trailing rules, one line each, written before any trade needs them.

Review: when the plan gets examined and against what evidence. A plan with no review block fossilises.

The template

Copy the shape, not the example numbers. Yours come from the next section.

Fit the plan to the evaluation you actually bought

A plan that ignores its account's rules is a plan for a different account. The arithmetic is short and worth doing on paper.

Daily stop inside the daily limit. Risking 0.5% with a stop after two losses makes the worst normal day 1%. Under the Advance 1-Step's 4% daily limit, that leaves wide margin for spread, slippage and one mistake. The same strategy at 2% per trade with no daily stop can finish the account in an afternoon. Quote your own plan's numbers from the trading rules, not a generic firm's.

Worst streak inside the max. loss. FFUNDED drawdown is static, the floor does not chase your equity upward, so the job is to make a normal losing streak, counted from your own records, fit inside the plan's max. loss with room left to operate.

One size where consistency is measured. Scale plans carry a ±25% consistency band, so a risk block on those accounts needs one standard size, not a feast-and-famine range.

No schedule pressure. The trading period is unlimited on every FFUNDED plan, so the plan needs no line about trades per week to stay on pace. Forced-pace lines are how overtrading gets written into plans by hand.

One framing line belongs in the risk block too: the account is simulated capital and the payouts are real money, so the resource being budgeted on this page is drawdown headroom.

Review cadence: the plan is permanently a draft

Fixed slot, once a week: read the journal, count rule breaks, decide on changes. Two constraints keep the ritual honest. Changes happen only at review, never mid-session; a rule changed during a losing trade was not changed, it was escaped. And the plan carries a version number, because v1.3 beats "the new one": versioning makes idle tinkering visible and deliberate revision respectable.

Frequently asked questions

What should a trading plan include?

Six blocks cover it: markets, sessions, setups, risk rules, trade management, and a review cadence. Each block is one or two lines, short enough to recall with a position open. Anything the blocks do not cover defaults to staying flat, which functions as the plan's seventh rule.

How detailed should a trading plan be?

One page, and specific enough that a stranger could take your setup definitions and mark them on a chart without asking questions. Detail beyond that point reduces recall without adding control. The test is not completeness but whether you can quote the relevant line from memory mid-trade.

Should my trading plan change for a prop firm evaluation?

The strategy should not, but the risk block must be rebuilt around the specific plan's limits: a daily stop that sits inside the daily loss limit, a normal losing streak that fits inside the max. loss, and one consistent size where a consistency rule applies. Many evaluation failures are simply plans that never did this arithmetic.

How often should I update my trading plan?

On a fixed review schedule, weekly for most active traders, and never during a session. Collect proposed changes as notes through the week, then accept or reject them at review with the journal open. Give the plan a version number so every change is deliberate and traceable.