On 2025-04-18 at 8:11 a.m., I had NinjaTrader on one screen and a plain sheet on the other. MES was moving, my hand was tight, and the note column was the part I trusted most. I keep a live trade log on Vigil open when I review trades, because memory lies after a green day and lies harder after a red one. I did not need a prettier file. I needed a smaller one. Why trading journal google sheets worked when Excel did not Before this, I kept a trading journal excel file on my laptop. It looked serious. It had tabs, colors, dropdowns, and a few formulas that made me feel organized on Sunday night. By Tuesday, it was dead weight. I trade around the open, check fills in Rithmic, and sometimes jump between TradingView and Tradovate in the same session. If the journal takes longer than the trade, I stop using it. That is why I kept coming back to a simple trading journal google sheets file. It opened fast. It synced fast. It did not ask me to be a better person before I had coffee. The first clean version was ugly.…