The only thing I can do when I fish is fish. The whole universe melts into me and the fish. NOTHING else exists. I can't even go fishing to think about something. Think about what? It doesn't even exist when I'm fishing.
Interesting, am that way with trading, anything I do with others or getting groceries my mind is thinking of patterns, I will see patterns in mountains close by, or cans on the shelve, can't turn it off.
if you're a discretionary day-trader or at least semi-discretionary, what do you do once you're in a position? Let it run for some time and make something else, i trade the 1 hour and 4 Hour timeframes. Are you glued to the screen waiting for a signal to add/liquidate to your position? No, that is only valid for intraday traders or scalpers. If you are not one of those, then your performance will degteriorate. Dr. Steenbarger states the the best predictor of success is if you are not glued to the screen. do you walk out of the room and check up on the position every once in a while? I use that time for "research" or backtesting strategies. I check the positions every 2 or 3 hours. Turn on music/youtube/movie and keep one eye on the charts... Or do you not have to worry about it because you set your profit target/stops and just wait for one of them to get hit? That's inefficent. If you want to take a rest take a rest, if you are trading you should focus on it without distractions. Reading news or third party analysis is a bad idea too. As a discretionary trader I can close the position if the price action is moving slow to the target. A systematic trader should let it go.
I use a computer to do my execution, my brain is only really used at system design time, then I write a program to back test the idea, if it passes I write a program to execute it forward.
I have second and minute charts to time markets but I look a week back and/or a couple weeks back for context -- using all timeframes.