Generally a good article IMO. I get what he means. He is a longer time frame trader - hence turning off his platform some days. It is not my style, but I get it. re: checklists See "The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right" (book) from a review: Already, a simple surgical checklist from the World Health Organization designed by following the ideas described here has been adopted in more than twenty countries as a standard for care and has been heralded as “the biggest clinical invention in thirty years” (The Independent). For me, checklists are better automated.
I think what you are really trying to say is I want to be a day trader, how do I do it? I use TD Ameritrade. It lets you paper trade. I have never done that so I do not know how it works. However, I recommend you finding something that lets you paper trade and do that lots and lots. Where is the big money?? I actually know and may, want, maybe not, ok I will, tell you. If you get into day trading or swing trading the big money is in when or when not to hold overnight. If you can get a clue on that you are THERE. For you - Wait at least a year to hold overnight.
Don't make trades that take your patience into the red. If you are impatient trading you are impatient at other things in life. Work on making yourself patient in life and the trades will get longer.
Somewhere in there I drink 8 cups of coffee, 30 minutes of leg exercises and keep thinking are we done with 3 hours of the session? Pleaseeeeee the clock must be broken !!!! Watching little sticks goes by, waiting for one of ?? patterns to see if this works in real time to be added for programming. Body hurts too much to swear playing golf, dog now hides when I am searching for his leash-had to call a cab when we reached 5 miles-can't carry German Shepard back. How many reruns of Gunsmoke can one watch? So I trade.
The article itself provides a lot more context for each one in my list. I also appreciate these come from personal experience and may not be suitable to different traders' style and temperament. For example, on #7, here's an excerpt from what I wrote in the article: How does backtesting help with more patient and disciplined trading? When going into, or planning an exit from a position, having some statistics to back up trading decisions adds more confidence, composure, and patience. For example, if backtesting determined that a trailing stop yields the best performance, a trader will be less inclined to become impatient and exit early because of an individual position’s fluctuations. In general, backtesting promotes thinking in terms of statistics and probabilities rather than individual trades; in other words, trading more like a business person than a speculative gambler.
Buy and Hold is pretty much like Warren Buffett, buy the stock and hold onto it. Check back in 25 years and see how you have done. Position trading, you have rules, probably, stop losses on where to get out when hit. Although, longer term trading, you will be taking profits somewhere along the way. Not in 25 years but, probably, when your stop losses are hit. Then, re-enter at lower risk points to ride the trend higher yet, again. Position trading can work provided you have set rules on when to enter, when to exit and take profits and then, when to re-enter again.
This is a thought-provoking response. What I've experienced is if my position sizes are too large, my patience go into the red. Dialing back individual position sizes allows me to sit through the normal volatility/fluctuations and stick to my trading plan. In effect, I'm able to develop a "healthy level of indifference" to individual positions, such that I'm not constantly watching price action and thinking about overriding my trading plan.