repetitio est mater studiorum: http://www.supermemo.com/english/princip.htm "Have you noticed that soon after learning a new study material you remember very little of it? The less you have a chance to rehearse what you have learned, the greater the speed with which the newly acquired knowledge evaporates from your memory. It has long been known that repetitio est mater studiorum (Latin: repetition is the mother of learning). In other words, the best way to remember is to make repetitions of the learned material. However, you might find it quite frustrating when you have to repeat old subjects while your teachers or supervisors still want you to know more and more new material. When are you supposed to find time for both? Usually, you find a solution in-between. You spend most of your time learning new things, forgetting what you have learned earlier, and rehearsing only material that is needed for current exams or other emergencies. The net result is disastrous! Most of your time goes to waste as you forget most of the learned knowledge. Naturally, you gain general understanding of the studied material, but understanding is also based on memory traces and is equally volatile. It is only a question of time when you irreversibly lose most of your investment in learning. Is the above presented situation inevitable? The pressures of the day do not really let you rehearse what you have learned earlier. The educational systems throughout the world are organized in a way that penalizes those who do not master the new material. You are pushed into a nonsensical situation. You are truly forced to waste your time and ... waste your life. "
a german neurologist called Frederic Vester has written some valuable things about the process of learning and the usage of information. I have read several of his books years ago but I think they are only available in german.
Southern California Basket Ball Academy http://www.shootinghoops.net/scbacreed.php - Importance of Instruction & Knowledge - Importance of Repetition - Importance of Creativity - Importance of Discipline & Commitment As you can see Discipline is only 1/4 of the whole ingredients. In trading I remark that people forget or are not even aware of the other three. Knowledge could be expected but Creativity is also very important and read the text you will understand why a "creative trader" can separate from an "average trader". Of course being an average winner trader will fullfill some people's ambition. But a "creative trader" won't trade for money, he will trade to achieve the greatest part of himself, money will be only a consequence. So do not confuse hard work or effort with creativity. And Creativity can also be trained. The problem with the education system is that it is not focused on making people creative. In fact creativity is almost the antinomy of discipline so one must achieve a balance between the two. Discipline can help becoming a good trader, creativity can help become a great trader.
What a pity I have learned german but really got a headache with "Der, Die, Das" When I was young I wanted to either become an astronomer or a neurobiologist. Finally I decided that research is frustrating if you are not a genious - probability is low that you are - and giving just my name to a planet wouldn't be a thrill for me. So I just decided to be an engineer rather than a researcher. Happily I discovered futures trading and that's so much research fun - although I prefer trading than research now.
This guy should learn to count correctly John Wooden, considered one of the greatest coaches of all time at any sport once remarked, "The four laws of learning are explanation, demonstration, imitation and repetition. The goal is to create a correct habit that can be produced instinctively under great pressure. To make sure this goal was achieved, I created eight laws of learning-namely, explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, and repetition."
I used to shoot baskets for exercise then it became sort of a Zen exercise the more I got into it. I learned a lot from that. One thing is to not think about what you do wrong at all, you think about what you did right during and after every shot no matter how bad. That helps you to divorce yourself from the outcome which eventually improves your ability to focus on what you did right. I think that applies to trading, focus on what you do right and reinforce good behavior. When you focus on what you do wrong you raise the importance of "wrong things" in your subconscious mind and send a conflicting message which actually tells your subconscious mind that doing things wrongly is important somehow. If you focus on what you do right you keep a clear message going to your subconscious. If something goes wrong it is good to briefly analyze what happened and then mentally rehearse by visualizing doing it right the next time. What you want to avoid is setting yourself up to be in conflict with your own goals or be arguing with yourself. Max
At some point in time practice makes perfect in order to achieve this unconscious state. How do you effectively practice unconscious competence with regards to trading? Simulation of the most common occurrences provides a basic plan to reach competence.
Ensign Software has a very interestng feature called Playback. Price data can be played back, tick by tick in any time frame and set to any speed up to 10 times normal speed. By rapidly playing back data at high speeds the sub-concious can be "programmed" to intuitvely identify price patterns and trader set-ups. It a very effective practice tool, imo.
This is an interesting practical framework idea for achieving that: Building Learning into Everyday Work http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/0/92D41499A691935C802569910043207C/ I am building tools for my learning group inspiring from this idea which is coherent within the higher framework I am using which is famous Deming's PDCA wheel (Plan Do Check Action) of CONTINUOUS progress. Concretly I am beginning to automate the chart's annotation during the check phase then it will be integrated into other phases.