Holding Yourself Accountable

[james_gsx]

Nice job just coming out Sparrow! haha

Tomorrow afternoon I will take a few screenshots and share my template I use for excel. I won't lie though, I don't use it as often as I should.

[BlowFish]

To be honest the more you put in the more value its likely to be to you.

Without knowing what you are trying to achieve no one can really judge whether you achieved it or not. Sparrows blotter snipette is a good example. Did he do what he should? Did he behave responsibly? Was he accountable? How can we possibly know?

For there to be any value to anyone (poster or accountant) there needs to be a set of criteria that the 'results' can be judged against otherwise it's pointless putting it on view.

To be accountable to yourself you need to describe precisely what you should be doing. To be accountable to 'us' you need to describe to us precisely what you should be doing. There is no other way, anything less and you are simply paying lip service to being accountable rather than actually being accountable.

Forgive the harsh tone, it is directed inward (towards myself) as much as anything

[BlowFish]

Just another thought a trading room is a possible place to 'be accountable' if it is structured like that. Again you need to let people know what you are trying to achieve rather than just call trades. For example you exit at 36.35 a bit too late/soon with the right sort of room you can state why and hold yourself accountable to your colleagues. Actually in the right sort of room where people know how you trade somone is likely to put you on the spot and say 'why did you exit there'.

Walter seemed to use the TL room like that to a degree, Adam also perhaps. Even if you are not being reviewed by your peers the act of describing your actions to other people is likely to make you consider more carefully and so be more accountable to yourself. The more detail the more you are likely to get from it.

[Sparrow]

You've got a point there, it's possible to make all the wrong decisions and still make money while picking up some bad habits. However more often than not it will show in your statistics and I don't have to think hard to identify what went wrong that day.
For a precise analysis video & journals are better, but if you just want quick results or find the days which you'd like to look at more thoroughly, stats are pretty suitable.
It depends how much effort you want to put into it.

[brownsfan019]

It would be nice to get something going...

And soon instead of having another thread die off into the depths of TL.

Anyone else interested or have ideas? Maybe it's time to start a P&L thread here???

[BlowFish]

Do you find the ET P&L thread useful? In what way? Its one of the few extremely well moderated ones at least. Maybe I am being dense but I cant see how posting a blotter is going to make you more accountable. Maybe I'm missing something. Today brown made 5 trades and 8 points, next day he made 7 trades and 4 points (was he over trading? hell I dunno) next day 2 trades and 10 points (was he missing entries or was that a great day...I dunno). Thursday he took the day off is that cool? Friday 4 trades all hit a -2 stop perhaps that was the best day as he stuck to the plan flawlessly?

Don't get me wrong I think its a really splendid concept honestly I do. IMVHO although a blog or a trade diary synopsis thread is a bit more work its going to pay far far greater dividends in fact I'd go as far as saying infinitely greater dividends but thats only because I think posting a blotter is pretty worthless.

Anyway keeping the thread going even if Im being somewhat contrary

[james_gsx]

Blowfish, I completely agree that a simple thread saying how many trades we took and points we get is a waste of time. That's why I'm leaning more towards the template idea that we can fill out. This way we can visually see trends in our trading, and what gaps need to be filled. I also believe that setting goals will help, and then by using a template that grades our trades we can see our inefficiencies and possibly what aspect of our trading is helping is get our goal or push us away.

Here is currently what I have laid out, it's still a work in progress but input is appreciated. What I have here is the ability to grade each trade, then track the P&L and grade on a daily basis. From there you can use graphs, or whatever works best to track your progress. There is also a section for emotional trades, and those receive an automatic 0. If it's a trade you take on a repeated basis but is not in your plan, add it then it won't be an emotional trade.

p.s - all that input I added was random. Not my trading or P&L

[brownsfan019]

	Quote:	BlowFish
	Do you find the ET P&L thread useful? In what way? Its one of the few extremely well moderated ones at least. Maybe I am being dense but I cant see how posting a blotter is going to make you more accountable. Maybe I'm missing something. Today brown made 5 trades and 8 points, next day he made 7 trades and 4 points (was he over trading? hell I dunno) next day 2 trades and 10 points (was he missing entries or was that a great day...I dunno). Thursday he took the day off is that cool? Friday 4 trades all hit a -2 stop perhaps that was the best day as he stuck to the plan flawlessly? Don't get me wrong I think its a really splendid concept honestly I do. IMVHO although a blog or a trade diary synopsis thread is a bit more work its going to pay far far greater dividends in fact I'd go as far as saying infinitely greater dividends but thats only because I think posting a blotter is pretty worthless. Anyway keeping the thread going even if Im being somewhat contrary

I know what you mean BF.

Yes, I think posting a daily blotter does add some degree of accountability, even if just a small one. If you are expected to post, then you should hopefully post - good or bad.

The P&L thread is a basic accountability thread in the truest sense. There's very little to be done by all parties, but it is something rather than nothing...

	Quote:	james_gsx
	Blowfish, I completely agree that a simple thread saying how many trades we took and points we get is a waste of time. That's why I'm leaning more towards the template idea that we can fill out. This way we can visually see trends in our trading, and what gaps need to be filled. I also believe that setting goals will help, and then by using a template that grades our trades we can see our inefficiencies and possibly what aspect of our trading is helping is get our goal or push us away. Here is currently what I have laid out, it's still a work in progress but input is appreciated. What I have here is the ability to grade each trade, then track the P&L and grade on a daily basis. From there you can use graphs, or whatever works best to track your progress. There is also a section for emotional trades, and those receive an automatic 0. If it's a trade you take on a repeated basis but is not in your plan, add it then it won't be an emotional trade. p.s - all that input I added was random. Not my trading or P&L

James,
Very nice what you have here.

While we disagree on a P&L thread being a waste of time, unless Soul can program a template type thing that we can use, it will be hard to form a template on our own. We could probably come up with some skeleton format, but it's back to are you just posting your P&L?

Anyways, good ideas here but maybe we need to hear from Soul about any other ideas.

[darthtrader]

	Quote:	james_gsx
	I won't lie though, I don't use it as often as I should.

I've been thinking about this alot lately. Really, from what is posted in this thread we all basically know what should be done but its more a question of just doing it. I think part of the problem comes though from keeping things inside the computer. The computer can do alot of great things but for other things it seems kind of expendable compared to the physical world.
If someone doesn't stick to their plan and makes dumb trades I don't see how you can replicate a face to face meeting and the shame of messing up on the computer, especially when you have never met the person.
A journal in a blog is a pain to deal with. To me just having Word open is so much more effecient. Then you still run into the computer problem though with things being expendable so you miss journaling days and just get lazy.
Some ideas I've had to combat this are buy a couple of dry erase boards and write down everything that needs to be done the night before for the next trading day. I would think having it in front of your face in physical form is more motivational than having text on a screen that can be instantly saved/changed/deleted. Same thing for a journal. Instead of posting a blog or keeping a word doc that can be saved/changed/deleted, each day write things down in word. Then print out a hard copy but don't save the word document. You have one chance to write things down and thats it. Its kind of like how if you were keeping a journal with pen and paper, your not going to leave a blank page in a notebook to maybe go back and fill it out next week. With a computer you basically have an infinite amount of blank pages that can be inserted in the journal, thats no good as far as enforcing discipline.
I really don't see how even a virtual trading group would work. Everyone would be doing their own thing, with their own money, on their own timeframe all without every actually meeting eachother. The only solution I can see is to either find local traders or try to teach someone to trade who can actually be physically present.

[james_gsx]

I think a p&l thread could be useful if the community holds eachother accountable. I think the problem most of us are running into is the inability to hold ourselves accountable. So if discuss things with our peers, it can help us a lot. Maybe not to mentor, but to keep us in check. I believe that if you create achievable and measurable goals and you have a true passion for achieving those goals, that you will find a way to accomplish them. Having someone to help give you that extra push can be extremely beneficial. But this could also depend on the personality type, but for someone like myself or Brownsfan I think it would be beneficial.

I could post that I will trade Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. If I don't post on one of those days with my results then I would expect someone to ask me why I didn't trade or didn't post. Eventually if you are motivated enough, you won't want to be asked why you aren't hitting your goals or trading or whatever is blocking you.

Darthtrader - I started using a notebook for my trading. Every night I would write down the numbers I would use as support and resistance before the market established them intraday. Then I would make a to-do list with my critical goals for the week at the top, and my enabler goals at the bottom. This simple method really improved my ability to execute especially with my trading biz. I hold myself to high standards, and if I see a goal sitting there without being accomplished it takes me down a lot. But also having a goal with no path to get there hinders my ability to achieve the goal, which is why I break things down in my notebook. At the bottom of the page, I leave room for notes that I can go through at the end of the day.