Stuart McPhee explains the importance of decision making for traders.

Traders routinely gather information, analyse it and then make a decision. Even deciding not to take action is a decision that has been made. So clearly, based on this premise, to be successful you need to be decisive. And to be decisive, you need to be confident in your own ability and the tools at your disposal (including your trading plan).

With all of this in mind, it is important that we identify two items to assist us in this decision making in order to eliminate distractions as much as we can.

First, where are you going to make your trading decisions? Which location provides you the privacy to spend time with yourself and with your own thoughts in peace and quiet? This ‘alone time’ allows you to think clearly and objectively when assessing your decisions.

Second, and not as important as the previous question, is identifying a time in the day when you are best suited to have this time to yourself. This will be very different for each person and could be immediately after arriving home from work, once the children are in bed, as soon as you get to work, to name just a few. If you can identify a time that will work well for you, it will quickly become routine and make you more efficient with your time.

The biggest reasons why people don’t make money from trading is because they have not done their homework and have not prepared their mind for successful, disciplined trading.