I’ve spent the past couple of days learning the basics of PHP and playing around with the WordPress blogging software, and I got caught up with something called the W3C Markup Validation Service.  It validates the structure of this page, making sure it is correctly and completely constructed, among other things.  I just spent hours and hours tinkering with this thing, only to realize that in the end, it didn’t make one bit of difference to the look of the site or the value of the content provided.

This got me thinking about the concept of high value tasks.  It might be enjoyable to tinker with a new hobby, but it’s also pretty important to take an inventory of what your high value tasks are.  What do you do really well…so well that you’d be considered an expert by the uninitiated?  Focusing on these tasks, provided that they are actually enjoyable, is a satisfying and effective key to success in any endeavor.

It may seem counter intuitive at first, but within the context of trading, my high value tasks are things that support positive trading psychology, not necessarily tinkering with (optimizing) an existing trading system.  As Ed Seykota said in “Market Wizards”,

”

Systems trading is ultimately discretionary.  The manager still has to decide how much risk to accept, which market to play, and how aggressively to increase and decrease the trading base as a function of equity change.  These decisions are quite important–often more important than trade timing.

”

For me, this means that I must constantly rehearse mentally for trading losses, so that I will be able to recover from them systematically…both emotionally and financially speaking.  Maintaining the proper state of mind during the hardest times will lead me more easily to future trading profits.