Last week was one of my better trading weeks, producing $3,060.60 in net option proceeds after fees.

This week was different.

I completed six option transactions and generated $1,774.47 net after fees.

And I'm perfectly happy with that.

The market simply didn't give me as much to work with this week. Frankly, I was also pretty low-key about trading. Most of my positions were already where I wanted them, and I saw no reason to manufacture trades just to produce a bigger weekly number.

I don't have a weekly income target that I feel obligated to reach.

I have a strategy, but I don't have a quota.

Monday was a pretty significant down day, and I didn't see much that interested me.

So I did nothing.

That's sometimes harder than it sounds.

When you're actively managing options positions, it's easy to convince yourself that you should always be doing something—rolling a call, selling another option or trying to squeeze a little more premium from the portfolio.

I don't look at it that way.

The positions were fine. I didn't particularly like what the market was offering.

So I waited.

Tuesday brought a stronger market and better premiums, and I made four trades fairly quickly.

The largest was MU (Micron Technology).

I rolled my covered call to the October 5 $965 strike and collected $1,004.44 net after fees.

I also rolled SPCX (SpaceX) to the October 9 $152.50 call for $145.67 net, and TSLA (Tesla) to the October 7 $362.50 call for $254.67 net.

Finally, I rolled my INTC (Intel) covered call to the October 7 $125 strike, generating another $189.68 net.

Those four transactions generated a combined:

Waiting one day didn't guarantee that Tuesday would be better. Nothing does.

But Monday's trades didn't appeal to me, and Tuesday's did.

That's enough reason for me to wait.

There's something else worth mentioning about Tuesday.

When I sent out the Trade Alert covering the day's activity, I inadvertently left out the INTC roll.

I caught it later while reviewing my records and sent a Position Update documenting the trade.

I'm mentioning it here because Options Income Journal is supposed to be a record of what I'm actually doing—and that includes acknowledging when I miss something.

If this were about presenting a perfect-looking trading record, I could have quietly added the trade later.

That's not what I'm trying to build.

The INTC trade happened. I failed to include it in the original alert. I corrected the record and moved on.

That's also one reason I'm doing this test before opening OIJ to paying subscribers. I'm learning what works operationally and where I need to tighten the process.

After Tuesday's activity, I didn't make another trade on Wednesday or Thursday.

Again, nothing was wrong.

Most of my positions already had options extending into the following week, and I didn't see anything that required my attention.

Then came Friday.

I happened to be in Venice, Italy, on Friday.

I had plenty of things I'd rather be doing than sitting in front of a trading screen all day.

And that's when a line occurred to me that pretty well describes how I want trading to fit into my life:

As it turned out, I didn't have to choose.

I found two trades that made sense to me, made them, documented them and got on with my day.

That's exactly how I want this to work.

My C (Citigroup) October 2 $130 cash-secured put was in the money.

I remain comfortable owning Citigroup at $130, but rather than accept assignment Friday, I rolled the put to October 9 and collected another $75.34 net.

The additional premium gives the position another week.

My thinking is fairly simple: I believe the stock has time to recover, and while I wait to see what happens, I'm continuing to collect premium.

If the stock remains below $130 as the new expiration approaches, I'll reassess it again.

I also had 200 shares of WMT (Walmart) sitting without covered calls.

Walmart has been trading below $110 for some time, and I decided the available premium was finally enough to put those shares back to work.

I sold two October 9 $107 calls, generating $104.67 net after fees.

It wasn't a huge amount of money.

It didn't need to be.

I already owned the shares. I was comfortable with the strike. And the trade gave me an opportunity to generate some additional income from capital that was otherwise sitting uncovered.

Here's the final tally:

Six transactions.

$1,774.47 in net option proceeds after fees.

That's considerably less than last week's $3,060.60.

And that's completely fine with me.

We've now completed five weeks of documenting these results.

During those five weeks, I've generated:

I've also had realized gains and losses on the underlying shares as positions have been assigned or closed.

Going forward, I'm going to track those separately so it's always clear how much of the result came from option premium and how much came from movement in the underlying stocks.

I've also started looking at another number that I think provides useful context: capital employed.

Over these first five weeks, I've had an average of approximately $207,600 of capital committed to the positions I'm actively managing.

That means the $12,746.51 in net option proceeds represents approximately:

I don't annualize that number or assume this pace will continue.

Five weeks is far too short a period to draw that kind of conclusion, and market conditions will change.

I'm tracking it for a simpler reason.

Making $2,000 tells me how much income I generated.

Knowing how much capital I had to commit to generate that $2,000 tells me something about how efficiently I'm using my capital.

Over time, I think that will be an interesting number to follow.

But I don't want it to become a target any more than my weekly income is a target.

If next week gives me $3,000 worth of opportunities that I like, I'll take them.

If it gives me $500, that's okay.

If there's very little worth doing, that's okay too.

The objective isn't to hit a number. It's to make good use of my capital when the opportunities are there.

It would be easy to take five weeks of results and project them forward for an entire year.

I don't think that would be particularly meaningful.

Market conditions change. Volatility changes. Stocks move against me. Positions get assigned. Some weeks provide numerous opportunities and others provide very few.

Five weeks tells me what happened during these five weeks.

Nothing more.

As the Journal develops a longer track record, these numbers should become more useful. We'll be able to compare different market environments, different levels of capital employed and different periods of option income.

That's much more interesting to me than taking a short period of good results and assuming they'll continue indefinitely.

This trip through Europe has turned out to be a much better test of Options Income Journal than I anticipated.

I've made and documented trades from airports, Florence, near Pompeii and even from my phone while in the Mediterranean.

And now Venice.

But I haven't spent the trip sitting in hotel rooms staring at markets.

That's important to me.

I enjoy trading. I enjoy looking for opportunities. And I've been doing this for a long time.

But trading is part of my life.

It isn't my life.

Friday was probably the best example yet.

I checked my positions. I saw two opportunities. I made two trades.

Then I went back to Venice.

Last week's Journal was about not becoming attached to a position.

This week's lesson is even simpler:

I can't control which kind of week I'm going to get.

I can control what I do with it.

Monday didn't give me anything I particularly wanted.

I waited.

Tuesday did.

I acted.

Wednesday and Thursday didn't require anything from me.

I left things alone.

Friday gave me two modest opportunities.

I took them.

That's a successful trading week to me.

Not because I made $1,774.47.

Because I never felt the need to make a trade simply so I could say I made one.

Several of my positions now have options expiring during the coming week, so I'll watch them and see what develops.

I don't know whether next week will be more active than this one.

I don't need to know.

I'll watch the market and my positions, and I'll look for opportunities.

If it's there, it's there. Otherwise, I wait.

There will always be another trade.

Options Income Journal documents my own trading activity, including actual trades, fills and results. It is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. I don't know your financial situation, objectives or risk tolerance, and you should make your own decisions regarding your investments.