Trading is tough, especially when doing it around other full-time commitments. The key to succeeding is to find the right balance.

There’s a misconception that to succeed at trading it needs to take up all your time. It doesn’t. Too many people are attached to the charts unnecessarily, and it’s not always productive. The better you get at trading, the more efficient you can be with it. 

In addition to my trading, I’m involved in many different projects (including The Duomo Initiative). 

The only way I can do this and manage it all effectively is to have a system. Not just a system for analysing the markets and finding opportunities, but also one for knowing when I need to be at the charts and what I need to be doing.

Note: Before I talk you through my approach, I must point out that this will change depending on the activity of the markets. If the trading conditions are particularly good in a particular day or week, I may choose to focus more on the markets and have longer, more active sessions.

The main components of my trading schedule.

I break up my trading into three main activities. 

1. Preparation sessions (once or twice a week) 
2. Update sessions (daily)
3. Check-up sessions (as and when they’re needed. Often multiple times per day).

Typically, I prepare when the markets are closed at the weekend. I focus on high-level analysis, whether technical or fundamentals, to decide which one or two markets will be on my radar for the other sessions.

Those weekend sessions only need to be a couple of hours long, since not much will change from one week to the next on the higher time frames. I’m only updating existing analysis rather than having to start from scratch.

Then my update sessions take place every weekday. I’ll be updating intra-day analysis on the chosen markets. This is when I set alerts at interesting price levels and create plans of action for when those alerts go off. The session takes less than an hour.

Finally, I have check-up sessions when key events take place or one of my alerts goes off. This could be to indicate a potential entry or to alert me about a potential action I need to take with an existing trade. All I have to do is assess the situation and refer to my prepared plan of action.

For a full run-through of this approach and an example trade, check out the video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTuu1Rn8lUU

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