The more you can automated your trading, the less time you have to spend actually trading. Also, for those of us who actually trade, realize that you can actually have down months in a profitable year and this has no relation to amount of time or effort. Finally, realize that true trading means you discovered an exploit that allows you to print money. An edge. If you don't have an edge, don't trade. And even if you trade, you should try to earn money doing other things to cover draw downs and unprofitable months.
I believe that "trying too hard" in trading can be a real problem for many folks. Also, the fact that we call it "trading" may be a problem, in itself, because that implies the activity of actually executing trades -- which is only a fraction of what your process should look like.
This is very true and I understand what you are saying here as it often happened to me. I think I am going to spend just half an hour max, and then I end up spending more, checking here and reading there... Well I think at the end of the day you cannot really manage time as you need to feel somewhat sure about what you are going to do. It also depends on the individual, how confident he is, the time at hand, whether he needs to go doing anything else later; there are many things really. However I think a good idea is to devote a certain time that is reasonable and try to avoid overrunning it too much, especially for health reasons too.
you need to control and regulate your time not only in trading, but also in life in general, with the right approach you can do a lot, and much will turn out better
of course, that the regulation of your time is a good step towards success, but this aspect alone is not enough to achieve something