Time Boxing

Time boxing is genius. It’s one of the few life hacks that should make it into your daily routine.

But what the heck is it and how does it relate to trading?

So time boxing is essentially giving yourself a set amount of time to think or work on something.

Let’s say you want to mark up on a chart at least 25 closes of the Nasdaq. You think by looking at the charts and making notes, you’ll come up with a better way to trade the close. (Good approach). But instead of just having it on your to-do list forever… you set time aside and work on that task for ONLY that period of time. Once the time is over, you’re done.

This forces you to work quickly and efficiently. No half-hearted efforts thinking you’ve got all day.

You can do this with thinking as well. Worried about something? Rather than let it dwell for days, weeks, or months at a time. Allocate specific time to get all your worrying done… Go wild, think of that worst-case scenario, but once your time is up, you stop.

Trading is perfect for this.

We can make time for trading, but that research, that journaling audit sits on the to-do list for ages. There’s never enough time. So it doesn’t get done… 

With timeboxing you can force yourself to get some momentum on the things you’ve been putting off. Even if that time box is just 40 minutes.

Today, think about how you could use time boxing to your advantage. Finally, complete all those tasks you’ve been meaning to do but never got around to it.

I think this works well for actual trading execution too. Traders who have created a specific window to trade in rather than the whole day, tend to be more focused. The downside of course is you can start to force trades, but if you overcome that you’re onto a winner.