This probably a good advice but not the point. I mean learning process are often boring and you have to be quite inventive to make it interesting tasks. We want to switch to the activity our brain finds pleasant, but often those tasks make no increment in knowledge or skills. When you feel you do something boring or it seems to be too complicated - be sure you are on the right path.
You may like this book (one of my favorites) He mirrors what qxr said. Goes something like this: The samurai lives or dies in the dojo, not on the battlefield!
Just exercise on a regular basis. Psychological comfort comes from the body. What works for me is an elliptical trainer each other day for 30 minutes, watching TV series. It's not that hard, just don't increase the load over time, do it in a hobby mode. Don't buy a cheap device, look for something in the mid range, according to your actual weight + 20kg. Sleep for exactly 8 hours a day, go to bed and wake up at the same time (23:00-7:00). Drink more pure water, not sugar drinks. Less fat, more fruits and wegetables. Sounds trivial but it actually helps me to stay in a good mood, no matter what happens around.
Good thread. Some great points made above. Look at procrastination as a good thing as it could likely be pointing out a deficiency in you and your trading. Fear of failure is the obvious one, and also most likely. But there could be others like being a perfectionist, inability to concentrate, poor discipline, etc. Take some time to find the real underlying reason/s. In any case, unless you have a really poor strategy, I think you need to get ‘engaged’. For example, if you trade discretionary then force yourself to make at least one trade a day. It doesn’t have to be the perfect trade, but the point is to get engaged, make a trade. Showing up is half the battle. It’s like all those people with gym memberships who go when they feel like it. If they don’t feel good then they don’t go. I don’t care, if it’s my gym day/time then I am there. Sore legs? Don’t care, show up. Hungover? Don’t care, show up. Got too much on at work? Don’t care, show up. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you get in there. Ok, maybe it’s not going to be your best day, but you can make it worthwhile. And, more importantly, you learn things by showing up. So take your sub-perfect strategy, recognize that you could lose a bit of money, and start trading it. Get small so that it can’t hurt you. Maybe set aside this small amount of capital you are willing to lose, calling it your ‘Procrastination Fighting Account’. That might ease the psychological burden. Yes, you may lose the lot, but the advantage is that maybe you will be learning and forming good habits by being constantly connected to the market. Perfectionism can be a killer. I think it’s so easy to read one more book, do one more back-test, learn one more options spread, that it can be tempting to do that rather than trade. The justification is that it brings improvement. But I suspect it’s often a search for perfection that is seemingly justified, but unfortunately will probably never be found, and traders hesitate to trade a non-perfect system. But you have to. Think of a general leading his troops to war. He doesn’t have all the kit he needs with his troops in perfect physical condition. And he never will. He goes to war with the army he has. He fights the battles based on those limitations. I worked with a guy that was always tinkering around with the fund we managed. He was constantly making small trades, doing small re-balances, adding to hedges, etc. It seemed pointless and it used to drive me nuts. But what it did do was keep us connected, with the fund, the market and the whole investment process. Sure the ‘do nothing’ approach would have saved us some commissions and the hassle of executing trades, but the benefit was it kept us ‘engaged’ on a daily basis.
If you do not put your trading first, you will be less likely to succeed at it. This does not necessarily mean you have to spend the most time at it, let it get in the way of your day job, or anything like that. It means that in your thoughts, trading is your first priority. I hope I am explaining this understandably.
Cartmm, thanks for this awesome comment! I think it is key to balance effective action and quiet reflection. So it is always important to force myself to some action, even if it is not effective, some action is better than no action.