5 Tips to Manage Your Time Better While Trading

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Principal Points

• Why is time management skills important for trading?
• Learn five practical tips that can help you make the most of your time trading.

Anything is possible at any time in the trading industry. The opportunities to trade are infinite. The forex market is open 24 hours a day for 5 days a week while the cryptocurrency markets are open 24/7.

With all this flexibility it might seem that time is unlimited, enabling you to trade anytime anywhere. On the flip side, however, this may put unnecessary pressure to be always on, ready to grasp whatever the markets will throw your way. This leads to fear of missing out to be prevalent in most traders.

Traders especially part-time traders find themselves struggling to make the most of the time available. Some might feel like the time they are available is not the right time to be trading due to the small window of opportunity available to them.

Whatever your lifestyle and the time you managed to allocate to trading, learning how to perfect your time management skills is an invaluable skill any trader needs to learn.

In the below article, we give you 5 tips that will help you make the most of your time trading, whether it is 20 minutes or 20 days.

Tip #1: Do Not Sacrifice Analysis

For those who are on a time budget, d not compromise on taking the time to analyze the chart and study the context of all the pairs you plan to trade. Using your time wisely and efficiently means starting off your trades with high confidence. Having a strategy in place before you even sit down to trade and being 100% sure of your strategy will help you not waste time later on down the road.

Tip #2: Avoid Distractions

In a world that thrives on distractions, it might be hard to switch off and focus on one task. Whereas for other tasks it might be possible to have a television set on in the background or Facebook notifications pinging on your laptop while you work. However, when it comes to trading it simply cannot be done.

Do yourself a favour and switch off all distractions including all social media before you sit down to trade. Your potential profits will thank you for it.

Tip #3:  Don’t force it!

For part-time traders it might be hard to juggle other commitments and make trading a priority, especially if you have a full-time job. You might want to schedule your time trading with a specific time window especially dedicated to trading. However, as most seasoned traders know having a short window time might not be the most convenient. So many factors are at play when you are trading live on the markets that it might be impossible to always be comfortable trading. Some days, regardless of the time you invested in analysing the charts it might not feel right to trade. The markets can be volatile at a specific time and if you are not available at that time then don’t force it. The most important thing is that you enjoy your time trading and that you act at the right time on the right thing. Timing is everything in trading!

Tip #4: Match Your Personality Type To Your Trading Strategy

Synching your personality type to different facets of your life can be an important factor in contributing to a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. This applies to trading as well, of course! If you are impatient and tend to have a short fuse it might be pointless to adopt a strategy that focuses on waiting for the right time to strike. You will end up being bored and frustrated which will come out negatively in your trades. It will be more worth your time to adopt a short-term strategy for your trades.

Choose a pair that tends to be volatile so you an make the most of your time trading. However, do not try to pack too much within your time (as highlighted in our previous tip). Do not choose too many pairs that you cannot keep track of. Instead, focus on pairs with a high return of investment and make sure you research and do sound analysis for these pairs to eliminate risk of error as much as possible.

Tip #5: Prioritize Your Tasks

This one is a staple for anyone who wants to hone their time-management skills. Before you start your time trading, write down all the tasks you need to do for that allocated time. Write down even the smallest and seemingly meaningless tasks and even sub tasks for each task.  Whether it is analysing tasks, adding stocks to your watchlist or actively trading on the markets, write them down. Then jot down the number of priority with number one being the most important that needs your immediate attention and making your way down the list.

This will help you be more organized and help you do the most necessary items on your list. Given your time is limited you may not be able to do all the tasks on your list. If you prioritize and manage to do the tasks that are most important it will leave you feeling more satisfied and fulfilled.

Apart from helping you pick up time-management skills, Sage FX is a secure, no dealing desk broker that promises to deliver the best value to all traders. Sign up or log in now to make the most of this experience!