From reading trading books to keeping a trading journal, there’s already been a lot of threads here about things you can do to help improve your trading skills.
But what about things that are not exactly trading-related but that in the grand scheme of things actually help you focus on trading better?
This is kind of related to this other thread about trading and self-care but this one’s more intentional in terms of “optimizing” your trading environment through non-trading activities.
Things like making sure the area where you trade isn’t cluttered so you can focus, that you eat healthy so you’re not sluggish, making sure your schedule isn’t filled with distractions etc etc.
What are your non-trading life hacks or pro-tips that you have that help you trade better?
A distraction free and peaceful “trading place”. It doesn’t have to be an office or empty bedroom. Just somewhere that allows you to get into the zone. No kids, pets, TV, spouses, coworkers, etc taking away your focus.
I have listed the TA features I want to see on a chart that confirm my set-up for entry. I initially look at the chart for these only and enter the result - bullish / bearish / not present / whatever on a spreadsheet. The pairs with the most bullish / bearish entries on the spreadsheet are my targets for new entries and I look at each of those charts for an entry position. My entries are based on EOD D1 charts so I only need to do this once a day. When I find an entry point for a target pair I set the buy/sell order and stop-loss and go away from the charts.
Hacks are everyday things that most people do regularly, but that can help you with trading. Meditation and mindfulness are some of those hacks, and they actually work.
If it is Monday to Friday, I make excessive use of the Microsoft Outlook diary planner, and fill each day from 09:00 to 17:00 with high level tasks (no longer than 4 hours, no shorter than 1/2 hr). Then I refer to the many Excel spreadsheets I maintain for each project I am managing, whether paid for (consulting) or home grown (investment, trading, property). A snippet below shows the template I use for maintaining task list and effort estimates on a task by task basis. I have maintained this (or prior versions of it) for over 20 years. In particular in times of what seems a large over-burden of work, it is amazing how many tasks you can complete like this. To fail to plan is to plan to fail.
What platforms are you using now to do this? YouTube? Spotify?
Goodness that is incredibly detailed! That’s amazing.
I have a less detailed version of that which is written down on a notebook and if not it’s on the Notes app. I find that if I don’t plan my day the day before, I tend to waste a lot of time the following day which I then realize is kind of crazy that we rely so much on spreadsheets, notebooks, etc. to manage our lives!
It truly is. After meditating for sometime mind is at peace and thought process becomes slower and more alert and the feeling is really good.
Well I am a Buddhist, So from very young we practice meditation for few minutes after every offering and prayer. So I took that practice and started applying to it my life as I become more and more busier with everything going in.
Every night before sleep I started to listen to a guided meditations I found on youtube there are many 10-15 minute clips we can find on youtube.
Turn off the lights and close my eyes and I listen to them. lying in bed or sitting on the floor.
First I listen to a relaxation music clip of 3-5 minutes to Calm all thoughts. Thoughts become slower and mind becomes more and more alert
And then I listen to the guided meditation clip. sometimes it’s guided meditation, sometimes it’s Buddhist meditations such as ones focus on breathing or Metta meditation.
Right now, for over an year I’ve been doing at least 30 minute meditation before bed. When I am too tired it’s about 15 minutes and most of the times it’s 30 minutes. After that I can sleep well and wake up with pure energy too.
One non-trading aspect that really helped me in my trading career is keeping the right balance between my personal and trading life. I try not to let the temptation to “trade for some more time” overpower me. I always spare a me- time and only spend pre- decided time in trading. My me-time must include fitness activities like working out, yoga or doing meditation because when mind’s healthy you can achieve anything.
