What Belongs in a One Page Trading Plan
The length of a trading plan is inversely related to how often it is opened. A document running to many pages is written once, admired briefly, and then never consulted at the moment it was meant to govern. A single page is different, because a single page can be read in the minute before the session starts, which is the only reading that changes anything.
The Test Every Line Has to Pass
Before deciding what goes on the page, it helps to have a filter. The one that works is whether a person who was not present could take your plan and your chart, look at a completed session, and say without hesitation whether you followed the rules. If the answer requires knowing what you were thinking, the line is not a rule.
This filter removes a lot of material immediately. Lines about staying disciplined, avoiding revenge trades or waiting for good setups all fail it. They describe a state of mind rather than an action, and while the sentiment is correct, a document full of sentiment provides nothing to check against and nothing to break.
The Definitions Section
The first thing that belongs on the page is a set of definitions specific enough to be unambiguous at speed. Which instrument, which session, what period the opening range is measured over, and what counts as the range boundary. That last one is less obvious than it seems, since a range measured on candle bodies is a different range from one measured on wicks, and both are defensible until the day the difference decides whether you are in a trade.
Definitions also cover what constitutes a break. A touch, a close beyond the level, a hold above it for some period, all of these describe different strategies. Leaving it undefined means choosing in the moment, and the choice made in the moment will consistently favour taking the trade.
The Money Section
Second comes the risk material, which should be the least negotiable part of the document. Where the stop is placed as a matter of structure rather than preference, how position size is derived from that stop distance, the maximum the account may lose in a session, and whether a second trade is permitted after the first one fails.
These belong on the page even though they are also decided elsewhere, because the page is what gets read. A risk policy filed in a separate document is a risk policy that competes for attention with the market, and it loses.
The Conditions for Not Trading
The section most often missing is the one listing the circumstances under which no trade is taken. A scheduled release landing at or near the open. A range so far outside its normal height that the arithmetic no longer works. A session you are attending in a state that you have previously learned produces poor decisions.
Writing these down converts a skip from an act of restraint into an act of compliance, which is a much easier thing to perform. It also protects the record. Without the list, every day you sit out looks like hesitation when you review the month, and hesitation is uncomfortable enough that most traders eventually stop sitting out.
What Does Not Earn a Place
Market commentary does not belong on the page, because it dates immediately and the page does not. Neither does an explanation of why the strategy works. That reasoning is worth writing, and worth revisiting when results disappoint, but it belongs in a separate note. Mixing rationale with rules makes the rules harder to find and gives you something to argue with at exactly the wrong time.
Profit goals do not belong either. A target for the day or the month describes an outcome you do not control and introduces pressure into decisions that should be indifferent to how the month is going. The page should be readable on the best day of the year and the worst without saying anything different.
What remains after all that is short, slightly dull, and usable. A plan that reads as boring is a good sign. It means the interesting parts, the judgement and the reading of the session, have been left where they belong, which is in your head, operating inside a boundary the page has already drawn.