What is your trading routine?

I believe that good routines are the key to consistency. Whether you trade full time, part time, or not much at all... I suspect we can learn a lot by looking at the routines of other traders.

So to that end... I have a few questions for those bold enough to answer.

Do you trade part time or full time?

What time frames do you mostly trade on?

When do you wake up?

When do you get to bed?

Do you find yourself waking up overnight and checking trades?

Do you ever close trades before they're done? If so, why?

How much time do you spend monitoring or making trades?

Do you prefer mechanical or discretionary systems?

Do you consider your life balanced? Are you happy?

Is there anything else, any advice you'd give to help traders improve their routines?

Do you trade part time or full time? Full Time

What time frames do you mostly trade on? Look at D1 for trend; trade 4H - 15M

When do you wake up? When I'm rested. Most of the time I'm up for Europe. If I need sleep I stay in bed. I will set price alerts to wake me if I see a good setup and don't want to miss a possible trade while asleep.

When do you get to bed? When I'm sleepy. Usually asleep by 8 pm.

Do you find yourself waking up overnight and checking trades? I almost never have a trade open over night. If it is, then yes.

Do you ever close trades before they're done? If so, why? Usually. I am more consistent when I take a nice profit once attained. Price usually stalls/retraces at least once before reaching the target. Often it would make the target, but is it worth the stress?

How much time do you spend monitoring or making trades? Until I reach my daily target. Sometimes all day, sometimes I'm done by 5 am.

Do you prefer mechanical or discretionary systems? All winning traders use discretion, with few exceptions. I have never seen a viable mechanical system.

Do you consider your life balanced? Are you happy? No. No. I am in training and have no income, my life is on hold.

Is there anything else, any advice you'd give to help traders improve their routines? Limit time on the forums! Use the time to study or practice instead. The knowledge gained vs. time spent is magnitudes higher.

Very nice... anyone else?

If you want to get good at this, start trading live asap...stalling will get you no where fast. Reading tons is fine, in fact, I recommend it, but you must make an effort to apply what you read and put it to the test...then you can come back and read more replies to get different ideas and solutions to actuall problems you maybe having. 80% action/20% study.

Relax, meditate often to balance yourself, have a life outside of trading to make trading truly rewarding.

What time frames do you mostly trade on? M30

When do you wake up? Morning PST

When do you get to bed? Night PST

Do you find yourself waking up overnight and checking trades? When signals call

Do you ever close trades before they're done? If so, why? Yes. bad feeling.

How much time do you spend monitoring or making trades? Half hour... or 3 seconds when signals call

Do you prefer mechanical or discretionary systems? mechanical

Do you consider your life balanced? Are you happy? Yes. No.

Is there anything else, any advice you'd give to help traders improve their routines? Keep researching your own system or searching other people's new systems.

1. Full time. Although not my only source of income.
2. I let the market conditions determine what timeframe I trade on. For instance, not much happening on the gbpjpy 15 min and higher timeframe earlier today so I moved down to 5 min and started scalping.
3. I have no specific time that I trade. I let the market determine that also. All of my indicators that I use send emails to my cell phone when conditions are right for a trade.
4. When I am tired.
5. Only when I get a message on my cell phone that a trade set up is occurring.
6. Everyone has done this. Not so much from greed but mostly from fear of loss. Did this just yesterday. Closed a trade for a small profit but could have held on for 3 times more profit. Not a big deal to me. I had already hit my daily goal anyway.

7. <10 min. I trade a fully mechanical system, so when I look at the screen, I can quickly decide go or no go.
8. see number 7.
9. As happy as can be. I have full freedom to do what I want when I want.
10. Never stop learning. Whether that is for forex or life in general. When you are learning you are growing, when you are not you rot.

Do you trade part time or full time? YES

What time frames do you mostly trade on? Mostly 4H

When do you wake up? wake up on London time

When do you get to bed? 3 or 4 hours after the NY market open

Do you find yourself waking up overnight and checking trades? NO

Do you ever close trades before they're done? If so, why? Yes..the PA always show the insight

How much time do you spend monitoring or making trades? 1 hour then put my PO order on some chart

Do you prefer mechanical or discretionary systems? Discretionary

Do you consider your life balanced? Are you happy? Im happy...well..a little difficulties on social life LOL

Is there anything else, any advice you'd give to help traders improve their routines? TRY...and keep it that way.then read or learn from other experiences, for you will not have time to experience all.

Do you trade part time or full time? Parttime

What time frames do you mostly trade on? London and US

When do you wake up? 7.00 GMT+1 (got to school)

When do you get to bed? 23.00 GMT+1 (finishing homework)

Do you find yourself waking up overnight and checking trades? LOL no, I dont think big traders are worriyng at overnight.

Do you ever close trades before they're done? If so, why? Nope

How much time do you spend monitoring or making trades? Less 1 hour a day

Do you prefer mechanical or discretionary systems? Riskfree arbitrage system.

Do you consider your life balanced? Are you happy? Yup, 22 years old and still big. Already working at an Investment Banking. (Traineeship)

Is there anything else, any advice you'd give to help traders improve their routines? Dunno

Do you trade part time or full time?
Full time.

What time frames do you mostly trade on?
H1

When do you wake up?
9-9.30am

When do you get to bed?
1am (just cos I do, not dictated by trading)

Do you find yourself waking up overnight and checking trades?
No way! My bed is too comfy to want to get up.

Do you ever close trades before they're done? If so, why?
Only if it's a few pips above breakeven and it's time for bed. Don't like waking up to be stopped out so won't leave a fresh position open over night. Would rather miss an opening.

How much time do you spend monitoring or making trades?
Most of the day because I'm at my PC messing about on other things. Just leave MT4 running in the background. I don't let trading get in the way of my life/hobbies, though.

Do you prefer mechanical or discretionary systems?
Discretionary. I sometimes spot opportunities.

Do you consider your life balanced? Are you happy?
All is good. Just want to start earning big money; it will happen in due course.

Is there anything else, any advice you'd give to help traders improve their routines?
You need to work out the best times for getting into a trade; personally I like to see a position move relatively quickly into profit so I can get my stops to breakeven without tightening the stoploss, so I won't open a position late at night.