Tom's T20 Journal

[tombacon89]

The Law of Least Effort

This is kind of common sense. 

human behaviour follows the law of least effort, we naturally gravitate towards the option that requires the least effort.

This chapter was about reduction friction, aka, Tiny things that make it slightly harder to complete a task. Eg, join a gym that is on your journey to or from work and your more likely to go, if your gym is the other direction, you have to go out of your way to go to the gym; that is friction. You are less likely to go. 

To create better good habits and increase the likelihood of completing the habit; the goal is to create a process that requires ‘less steps’ or ‘less things to do’ to achieve your desired habit. 

Why have 3/4 things to do to achieve your habit, when you could do it in 2?

On the flip side, to eliminate bad habits; put them in the ‘too hard to do’ box. Add more parts to the process and you will find; you can’t be arsed! So your motivation to do the bad habit reduces. 

This comes back to pro-actively creating your environment.

let’s say as part of my pre session routine, I have to read my trading plan before the session. My current one is lengthy, which is fine and good that it is. But, if I want to read this every day before I trade; perhaps a one page streamlined version would be much better and more achievable to do consistently. 

I am considering using an auto trade recording stats thing to remove one part of the process which is manually entering trades and scores into my spreadsheet.  But, I think I would still have to manually keep data on DS, R score and how good the trade is out of 10. So it is probably ok to just keep manually recording in this case. 

if anyone has any suggestions for auto keeping stats I would be interested to know what other software ETX other people are using. 

note to self:

create a one page trading plan cheat sheet on my return. 

LESS IS MORE WHEN IT COMES TO CREATING GOOD HABITS

[immy]

I guess, as the writer of Atomic Habits has mentioned, the next book you will be reading is The Habit by Charles Duehigg. But I think this book is better. The other is more academic. 

I recommend reading The Subtle Art of Not giving a F*** and The 7 Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. (at this point in time, some of the stuff may be outdated a bit and his references to a god might through you off but those things can be easily ignored or taken with a pinch of salt. The book is excellent). 


ps: DO NOT, I repeat , DO NOT automate the process of journaling or keeping track of your trades. YEs, you can connect your account to myfxbook for detailed analysis, that is a great tool, but if you don't keep a SPREADSHEET and Journal Posts online, the process will become ineffective and you will stop doing it. 

[immy]

Discipline Score

I have divided this into 3 Parts

Entry DS, Risk DS and Exit DS. 1 point for each creates a 3-point score. 

Profits: I don't have a profit target as such but I am consistently trying to achieve 5% profit per month. I think anything less than that is ok but its just a waste of life. Some months we will go over 5% other months we will finish with a loss. 

I am going through a transformation so I am changing my habits and process almost every week. But I hope to find a set of habits and rules soon. 

H1 has been a really good change in my life. I am bored most of the time, which does not lead to taking trades rather it leads to missing trades. Which is not that big a problem, but still a problem. E.g. I counted today that I missed on 20% profit on UJ this month. It's all because of getting bored, going away and then, missing the trade. 

IF the same were to happen to me on m1, I would definitely take a trade and end up losing. M1 is definitely more additive than the hourly time frame or higher time frame. 

I do suggest that you should work on trading M5 instead of M1. This will increase your profitability. 

ps: I was scared when I read "the law of..." I thought Attraction was coming up.... that shit wasted a big chunk of my life. I feel embarrassed but it is true and I can't delete that past. 
 

[tombacon89]

I guess, as the writer of Atomic Habits has mentioned, the next book you will be reading is The Habit by Charles Duehigg. But I think this book is better. The other is more academic. 

I recommend reading The Subtle Art of Not giving a F*** and The 7 Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. (at this point in time, some of the stuff may be outdated a bit and his references to a god might through you off but those things can be easily ignored or taken with a pinch of salt. The book is excellent). 


ps: DO NOT, I repeat , DO NOT automate the process of journaling or keeping track of your trades. YEs, you can connect your account to myfxbook for detailed analysis, that is a great tool, but if you don't keep a SPREADSHEET and Journal Posts online, the process will become ineffective and you will stop doing it. 


 

Agreed. The process of keeping manual data is, it is my data and I can pull data from it what is relevant to me. And actually, it is not that much of a chore either!! It is something I will continue to do.
 

[tombacon89]

Discipline Score

I have divided this into 3 Parts

Entry DS, Risk DS and Exit DS. 1 point for each creates a 3-point score. 

Profits: I don't have a profit target as such but I am consistently trying to achieve 5% profit per month. I think anything less than that is ok but its just a waste of life. Some months we will go over 5% other months we will finish with a loss. 

I am going through a transformation so I am changing my habits and process almost every week. But I hope to find a set of habits and rules soon. 

H1 has been a really good change in my life. I am bored most of the time, which does not lead to taking trades rather it leads to missing trades. Which is not that big a problem, but still a problem. E.g. I counted today that I missed on 20% profit on UJ this month. It's all because of getting bored, going away and then, missing the trade. 

IF the same were to happen to me on m1, I would definitely take a trade and end up losing. M1 is definitely more additive than the hourly time frame or higher time frame. 

I do suggest that you should work on trading M5 instead of M1. This will increase your profitability. 

ps: I was scared when I read "the law of..." I thought Attraction was coming up.... that shit wasted a big chunk of my life. I feel embarrassed but it is true and I can't delete that past. 
 

 

You cannot delete the past but you would not be where you are now is it was not for the past! 

I like that idea of splitting up the DS. That way, we would know where we need to up our discipline or improve. 

thankyou for the suggestions. Defo food for thought!

[tombacon89]

Quote: one of the most satisfying feelings is making progress. 

habit tracking should be 3 things:

obvious 
attractive
satisfying

keeping track of how often you are keeping good habits can become a good visual insentive to keep going. Such as, putting a tick on the calendar for every single day you have completed the habit. The more ticks you see, the more you will want to see…. Or a percentage achieved sliding scale. Etc. 

also… combined with ‘streaks’ … how many times consistently you have performed a habit. Which makes me think… what would a DS STREAK look like for motivation? 

when i hit a DS0, the tally streak is reset and the streak challenge continues… how many ds1 can I achieve in a row?  

could the feeling of resetting the clock after a good streak be the instant pain of taking a DS0? I feel there needs to be a little driver to not do a DS0. Some form of punishment; as, we all know… DS0 could easily be a 3r winning trade… and that provides little in the way of WHY THE FK DID YOU DO THAT feeling.

this can be combined with:

HAVING AN ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER.

my wife has always been allowed to ask me to show her my journal, my trades, my balance. But she never has. (She is not interested lol)

I am one of those people who tends to do things better when it is for someone else. I am thinking I give my wife £10 of my spendable income every time I do a DS0? (She will be loaded ) if I had done this last month…. I would have not have gone on a rampage with trend candles. Guaranteed. 
 
 

[immy]

You can achieve that without troubling your wife with it. I think wives just want to see their husbands succeed and be all around GREAT. lol

Wives can't really mentor you, there are so many other political issues going on in life. This might get in the mix and make it more complicated.

Who has ever been successful in teaching them how to drive? 

there is an alternative... Hey, you are reading...

Put your account screenshots here, in your journal. Do not hide a trade, do not go in hiding "I was trying blah for the last week" (essentially you lost track and could not share it). Make the account balance be known. There is no shame in trading a 100-dollar, 1000 or 5000-dollar account. Or even a demo account. 

It will help. 

[tombacon89]

Ok so I had an internet issue the last few days of holiday and was unable to post into journal but was able to like others posts. I am back in UK now, so I can update a few days worth in one go now.

I'll simplify this as the 'LAST FEWS CHAPTERs' of the Atomic Habits book. So, what did I learn in the last few chapters???

It is natural for humans to his PEAK MOTIVATION when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their CURRENT ABILITY. A bit like saying to a child, you can look but can't touch... you are so close... the motivation is THERE! The downside of this means, once the task becomes NATURAL,NORMAL,SUCCESFUL is it NOT UNCOMMON for a drop in performance to happen; once something has been LEARNED/UNDERSTOOD/MASTERED.

ONCE it is LEARNED/UNDERSTOOD at least, the thing becomes EASIER, LESS CHALLENGING, and LESS SATISFYING. (you know the honeymoon period of a relationship, people who love the chase...) In essence, once we have progressed so far we GET BORED!!!

Anyone can work damn hard when they feel motivated and engaged with the topic/task, but when we become BORED it is harder to find motivation. 

**** THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AMATEURS AND PRO'S IS NOT HOW HARD THEY WORK; BUT THE ABILITY TO KEEP GOING WHEN THYE ARE BORED ****

The pros stick to the polan, they do the drills, they do the reps DESPITE the days they CANNOT BE ARSED, OR ARE BORED. They stick to the routine... the PROS just GET IT DONE. Time after time. repeat repeat repeat.

What the pros also do, which I started out doing... and I regrettably failed to do this... after t100 was review. Pro's review their performance. I had a rule of 'I will not take another trade until I have done a batch review.' THIS RULE IS PRICELSS... and I broke it. Previously, I had to go back through all my trades in one go to review. I will use the rules in this book to ensure this is EASIER TO DO, and ensure I record in ONE DOCUMENT for each trade, with comments.. so essentially, when I come to the end of a batch; the review is already complete! 

Things to remember from these last chapters:

EFFORTLESS HABITS ARE ATTRACTIVE, EASY AND SATISFYING.

DIFFICULT HABITS ARE INVISIBILE, UNATTRACTIVE, UNSATISFYING AND HARD WORK 




 

[tombacon89]

DREAM BIG FISH.jpg

Welcome to my DREAM BIG discipline flowchart...

Why DREAM BIG? Well... My Discord Logo is the dream big fish.. a goldfish wearing a shark fin... I first saw this photo over 10 years ago, I knew then how powerful this image was.... if you look at it, and understand the meaning behind this... you will understand too... Not only is it a POSITIVE PHRASE... I have, since reading this book realise actually I can use this image and words to MY ADVANTAGE. maybe it was there 10 years ago, but something clicked, so I wrote it down ASAP in my notes page on my phone.....

Here is what flowed into my brain and here is what my creative mind came up with... I HOPE it helps not just me but anyone who wishes to use it, please feel free.

This is about me developing MYSELF, my good trading habits and in the process making better trading decisions, with the overall focus on DISCIPLINE. I am here because I lost it for a little while.... however, reading this book has clarified a few reasons as to why I may have fallen into this trap... but I would also not be here without going through it, so I am grateful for that. This is one small change of a few I am making in terms of my environment, and daily trading habits. 

Everything in this process now feeds into the over arching priority of DISCIPLINE; but I realise that the word DISCIPLINE alone is not clear enough. DS1 is NOT ENOUGH. I thought it has to come as a package.  Alongside other subtle changes to my environment and recording processes; my intention is to remind myself of this PROCESS every single time I trade. 

Every time I SIT DOWN TO TRADE. This below will be printed out and will live on top of my laptop. So every time I sit down to trade, I PHYSICALLY HAVE TO HAVE IT IN MY HAND in order to trade; if it is in my physical hand I may as well read it. it will take 10-30 seconds.

The following, has been thought up of the good habit traits from the book atomic habits but with my weird mind spin on it.

Each word links to a task; each task forms on part of the whole trade process. If I feel lost, I simply have to pick up the piece of paper and remind myself which part of the process I am in. you could call this.... the discipline flowchart..... 


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
D R E A M  B I G

D - Discipline 
R - Repetition
E - Evaluate, Execute, Evaluate
A - Accept and Account
M - Methodical and Mechanical

B - Battle the Boredom and Believe
I - Inspiration
G - Gratitude


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

so what does all that mean?


D - Discipline - The overarching desire is discipline. I will be disciplined by following the tasks below.

I will be disciplined in my good habits, my strategy and myself. 




R - Repetition - Repetition is the key to success.

I will pre-define what sessions or times I will trade at the start of the week/month according to my day job. There will be no 'I feel like trading today' sessions.

I will repeat the setup over and over, repetition is the key to success, I will get the reps in, I will trade the setups. 

I will repeat the process over and over, the DREAM BIG approach is the process, I will always repeat it every time I take a trade. 

I will look at the photos of 'the setup' next to me, they are always in front of me in my trading environment. They are subconsciously there, and also consciously there when I look at them. 




E - Evaluate, Execute, Evaluate. - 

I will evaluate the market, I will pre-identify what I need to see happen, only once that is happening; I will then evaluate the market conditions in accordance with the banana rules.

When the rules are met, I will execute the trade with conviction. 

I will then re-evaluate my trading decision after the trade. A comment will be made in the spreadsheet after each trade.

I will collate feedback after every trade by completing the spreadsheet, this will summarise my batch after trade 20. I will evaluate the batch before starting a new one. 




A - Accept and Account

Accept the outcome is random. 

I will, once the trade is triggered, begin the accountability process. I will start to record the relevant data from that trade in my spreadsheet. I do not need to watch the trade whilst I am recording this data.

I will, once the trade is done, screenshot the trade. 

I will post the trade into my journal. 

I will trade my trading plan and stick to the drawdown rules I have set. 





M - Methodical and Mechanical

My job is to place order on the correct banana signals; and to record the outcome.

I am a stats collector and risk manager; that is my job.





B - Battle the Boredom and Believe

I will not allow myself to trade out of boredom.

I will identify that the desire to 'try something else' in the longer term, is itself a sign of boredom. 

I will believe in the strategy, my ability and trust the process with a probabilistic mindset. 

I know the pro's do the same thing over and over again, they just get on with it. Just get the reps in. This is the most important key to success. 





I - Inspiration

Think to yourself every day 'what would the pro do right now?' and do that. You know what the correct thing to do is; so have the will power to do just that. 





G - Gratitude

Be humble, don't celebrate wins, don't mourn losses, you don't know it all, never have, never will. You DO NOT need to know it all to make money by trading. Be grateful for the opportunity and position you are in. It is a privilege to be able to trade. 




 
 
 
 
 

[tombacon89]

What a way to put my patience to the test of NOT PLAYING WITH TRADES, and LETTING THE OUTCOME BE RANDOM. I had 2 trades left of this batch, but felt this was the right time to revert back to 3r targets now. First session back from holiday.

No trade this afternoon with US holiday. 

New Spreadsheet updated to include entry, exit and risk, comments and also a summary page for each batch so there are no excuses now to not do batch reviews with ease and simplicity. 

I am done.

BATCH 1 TRADE 19.png

 

BATCH 1 TRADE 19 FINISHED.png