I wholeheartedly agree. And if you deviate your plan all the time and still make a profit then that means perhaps the plan needs to be revised or improved but you still have to stick with the plan. If you don't have the discipline to adhere to your plan, sooner or later you will be in trouble.
I review all my signals for the week, either daily or on the weekend whether taken or not. I track entry price, short or long, time of day, type of signal, MFE, MAE, Initial Risk, Initial target (based on IR) and size of profit or loss for the trade. I have done this religiously for years and while it's no longer necessary, it's still a good practice to stay grounded.
I have seen his trading book. It's pages of hand written prices. As price went up so did his column of numbers and when prides when down so did the next column of numbers. There were a few notations, such as "normal retracement" I can't swear those were the exact words but that's what he meant. I suspect his method was to look for the ends of pullbacks.
Don't let them talk you out of your plan. Do what will make you better. Pro football players watch tapes after every game, you should review every trade after every market session. At the end of every day I reviewed every trade I made that day.
Not that what you're doing is not important, but learning from oneself isn't as important as learning from other people's mistakes. Deep down, we're all really hypocrites. BTW don't get so hung up on the Livermore's character (or whether he blew up 3 times or he killed himself) but learn his trading method, eg. reading the order flow.
The others don't do it because they are already profitable expert traders. As an unproven day trader, it is important for me to keep refining my technique.