It's very ironic that today's entry is about routine seeing how mine was pretty much off the entire day.  Today was my off day from volunteer coaching in the afternoon and I had a long list of things that I wanted to get accomplished since usually my schedule is pretty full. There was nothing really crucial on my to do list, just some simple things, like run to the bank, workout, grocery shopping, reading and reviewing and updating my business plan.  Then I got the worst phone call in the world. Well not the worst, but one of those phone calls where I was asked to do something by my girlfriends mother (so you know you can't say no) but without her giving you an exact time of when she wanted to meet up and do it.  Needless to say I was on edge all day, hesitant to stray too far away in fear that as soon as I did, it would be time to complete the task.  I talk about routines because when working from home having a set routine is crucial to success.  having one keeps you accountable and allows you to stay organized.  And trust me if you're a full-time trader in the Forex market (which is open 24 hours a day) it is easy to simply say "well I have all day to trade so I'll just do it later." FALSE!

My daily routine is simple. My trading day  goes from 5:45am to 12 noon giving me about 6 hours in the market each day. Keep in mind I can whenever I see a signal I like, but this is the period that I dedicate to being in front of my computer and actively watching the market.  However, during my week down south with the track & field team, I had to alter my routine to fit our training schedule.  Our bus left for practice at 8:45am and didn't return until around 1pmish so I knew that if I wanted to get some work done it had to be in the morning before our 50 plus athletes were awake.  I had two choices, stay up really late at night or wake up really early in the morning.  Anybody who knows me knows I'm an early bird so I decided to wake up  4:00 and trade until 8:00 every morning. "Yeah! I can do that. No biggie. Who needs sleep anyway I'm a man."  lol A single day later my entire mindset changed. Waking up that early and being productive was one of the hardest things ever.  Waking up wasn't as much of a problem after fighting through the initial pain and urges to go back to sleep.  But getting my brain to function in a way that was needed to properly and efficiently trade was much harder than expected.  And because of this I missed many trading opportunities that I may have caught otherwise. "Humans are creatures of habit" and everything I was used to felt like it was flipped upside down.  I never realized how important going through my daily routine was until I was forced out of it. When I came home and traded the market Monday morning I woke up with a big smile on my face. So happy to have my dual monitors and my gigantic white board at my side.  Back to normal.  

P.S. Did anybody see what happened in the market today? If I wasn't writing these series I would have a lot to say about the recent destruction going on. What am i doing? I'm going to sit back and watch until i feel it is safe to participate again. Wowzers! it's been Banan
Gary
3/17/2011 12:13:55 am

'A single day later my entire mindset changed.' LOL that part made me laugh a bit.

This is an example of 'Adapt and overcome.' Adapting to your current situation and overcoming, regardless how difficult, any offsets. Man, that's why I said what I said in the message. The fire!

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