Have you ever heard the expression, “all the gear, no idea”?

It’s like when people watch a major sports tournament on TV, get caught up in the moment, and decide they want to start playing that sport.

So they’ll watch the tennis at Wimbledon, and next week they’ve got a fancy racquet, the Federer headband and wristbands, special tennis shoes, string straighteners, a huge racquet bag, finger tape… the lot.

They feel like a pro tennis player, and they can’t even serve properly yet.

The same happens with trading. At different points in your development or career, there will be things you spend time or money on that contribute very little to your performance.

But you tell yourself it’s just what traders do.

The monitors, the accessories, the subscriptions, and all kinds of daily and weekly tasks.

I remember a few years ago TradingView released a limited edition trading watch, and they sold out really quickly.

As soon as I saw it, I thought, who the hell is buying that? Answer: people who want to feel more like a trader.

TradingView watch

Seriously, wtf…

I’ve done this many times over the years too.

When I was learning, I got subscriptions to all kinds of financial publications. So many that I couldn’t even keep up with them all.

I was receiving the Financial Times and all the supplement magazines every day, Investors Chronicle, The Economist, and all sorts of other minor magazines. By the end of each month, I looked like a hoarder with these huge piles of unread newspapers.

I just thought that’s what traders did. And to be honest, having the FT arrive at my door each day made me feel really professional.

How much did it contribute to my performance? Bugger all.

It’s easy to recognise where you’re wasting money unnecessarily. The trickier thing is to notice where you’re wasting time.

For years, I had my finger on the pulse of everything going on in global economies and the financial news. I’d spend hours each morning, and throughout the day, following it all.

It got even worse in 2012 when I quit my career in banking to become a full-time trader, because then I had even more time on my hands to dedicate to the markets.

At that point, I had all kinds of tracking tools and matrices that I’d update each day as the news changed or economic data was released. I even had employees who would help me with it.

Eventually, I took the time to reflect on everything I was doing, to see where I could optimise.

I realised I was spending so many hours every day staying on top of the financial news, but it wasn’t contributing much to my analysis or decision-making.

It was the biggest drain on my time, but had the smallest pay-off. Not great from a cost-benefit point of view.

So I stopped. And I haven’t looked back since.

Of course, I still follow the financial news broadly, and dig into the fundamentals when I need to. In fact, some of my biggest trades have started from a fundamental view. But I don’t need to keep my finger on the pulse of absolutely everything that’s happening every hour of the day.

I’m not telling you this to discourage you from following the financial news. It’s that I see so many traders wasting time in similar ways.

Every day, you have a limited amount of time and mental energy.

When was the last time you audited what you’re spending it on and weighed up the cost-benefit? Are there other things you could be doing instead that would have a much bigger payoff?

So don’t keep doing something just because it’s what you think traders do, or because you’re afraid of what you’ll miss if you stop.

Put your time where it actually benefits your performance.

And if you’re not sure what that is, well, that’s the first thing worth investigating.

I’ve actually just put out a video walking through a simple 5-step process that’ll help you figure that out. You can watch it here.