The 8-8-8 Rule

The Power of Balance and Its Impact on Your Trading Journey

Splitting Your Day

Trading can take over your life… Most markets are 24/5 meaning if you want to be at the screens, there’s always something going on. That’s a good thing in one respect, plenty of opportunity and the ability to tailor trading around your lifestyle.

But on the other hand, if you’re not careful you can become a screen slave.

Counter to new traders’ instinct, more screen time does not equal more profit! (Yes in the early 2000’s I believed this). In actual fact, balance is so so important in trading. We are in one of the very few businesses where a slight mistake can set you back months. It’s important to be on point and as sharp as you possibly can be during the trading day.

Enter the 8,8,8 rule.

The 888 rule states that you should split your day up into three distinct 8 hour chunks.

8 hours of deep work

That could be 3 hours of actual trading plus 3 hours of market analysis plus 2 hours of journaling and review. Break it up as you wish, but you do ONLY 8 hours. (No sneaking a peek at the Nikkei at 2am).

8 hours of sleep

Unless you are Anthony (Developing trader from my recent podcast episode….) who sleeps for just 4 hours a night, most of us need decent refreshing sleep to be able to perform.

You can’t expect to make tough, risk-based decisions with not enough sleep. You might get away with it once, but you won’t get away with it forever.

8 hours for sleeping.

8 hours for family, fitness, friends, fun

Self-explanatory but these are usually the first eight hours to be pushed away and neglected.

But they should be non-negotiable.

Healthy body = Healthy mind = Sharp to take advantage of market opportunities.

Family and friends. Staking your worth onto your success as a trader is dangerous. Even if you are doing very well, one poor month equals some real negative emotions. You need to spend time with your family and friends so that you develop meaning as a father, partner, son, and brother. The old excuse of: “Oh I’ll make more time for my family when I make a bunch of cash” is nonsense.

Don’t fall into the trap of “I’m doing it for them”

Not only is life too short to neglect the people that matter, but you’ll 100% see your trading improve when you do this! When you make time for the other important things in life it makes you a so much better trader.

Your intuition flourishes, your discipline improves, and setbacks don’t seem so painful.

Today think if you could implement the 8,8,8 rule. If you do, let me know how you get on!