If you spend your trading day alone, does your mind slow down?

Hi

trading alone all day has made me realise just how important social interaction is.
I have found that without social interaction for many hours at a time, my mind slows down a bit and things (eg. like reading a long winded post on T2W) can become a blur and a chore, and require greater effort perhaps, than if i was in a more stimulating environment where i felt fully alert.
This is slightly worrying as it perhaps indicates a slight deterioration in cognitive functioning .

Basically, i have found that just basic social interaction and physical movement, a bitg of adreneline etc. are what are required to get me firing on more cylinders. Interacting with others in work helps give a person a meaning and a social identity.

1. When I have worked in places where i enjoy interacting with the people i work with, getting up on a morning is a pleasure.
2. When i have worked in environments where i have not liked the people that mcuh or the atmosphere, motivation to get out of bed is less than in 1.
3. When trading alone all day, i have no one to intereact with and bounce off so to speak. Motivation is all down to me and the day although easier than in 1 & 2, can seem a greater challenge to get off the ground.

Whats your take on these matters?

Thanks.

Is the opportunity to earn a huge amount of money not enough motivation?!!

As for firing on more cylinders, try coffee! :cheesy:

I do miss social interaction at work to a degree but it doesn't effect my trading. If I do want to chat to someone though, I just pick up the phone...

just my take on it...

good points, with trading for me total concentration is important, so the less people or distractions the better, but if there are any around I can shut them out quite well, although have noticed that this can be seen as being rude no matter how many times I explain it.

"You know when linford christies lined up the 100 metres final in the olympics?
"yeah.."
" well kinda like that only more focused. now get lost. " lol



The odd bit of banter with people pursuing similar interests is good, and websites like this facilitate the exchange, trading folk seem to be scattered all over the place. Social isolation can be problematic as the lone retail trader sets off on his or her journey for a few years. The answer?

We have to recognise to manage our time for other interaction. Guilty of not doing that in the past due to obsessional behaviour and commitment to be available to learn.

hmm I now manage time to interact more.

If I was single, then I'd probably just turn up at the pub now and then to get pasted with a few mates ..

But I'm happy to work solo or in a team environment, you can have a good laugh and I have fond memories of those days.

Like I said to my mate fast Eddie, "Fear is just a 4 letter word"

His immediate response.

"So is C--T"

Told you he was fast.

I prefer to trade alone.

I hate it when the wife is around. There are always unwanted distractions of one form or another.

The worst one is: I need to go to xxxxx now. Can you take me. It is almost always a few seconds after you have put a trade on, or close to usa opening.

Refusals meet with. 'Why, your not doing anything, your just sitting there.'

I really must get a small office somewhere, and tell her I've got a job in insurance or something.

wasp said:

Is the opportunity to earn a huge amount of money not enough motivation?!!

As for firing on more cylinders, try coffee! :cheesy:

I do miss social interaction at work to a degree but it doesn't effect my trading. If I do want to chat to someone though, I just pick up the phone...

just my take on it...

Click to expand...

Hi wasp

it is a big motivation!

I've never been a big tea or coffee drinker, but i got into the habbit of 2-3 cups of tea a day. But then i started to feel quite strange mentally, similar to how i feel after drinking coca cola on an empty stomach after playing sport - physically stimulated and alert but mentally dazed. I find this a strange and uncomfortable sensation. Therefore haven't touched caffeine this year, nor have i wanted to!
The tea/coffee phenomen has always amazed me. I've worked with men/women who drink 5-6 cups per work day, and i am a big chap who starts feeling funny after drinking 3 cups of tea in a day! How do they drink so much!
What also made me stop was reading/watching something about how caffeine relates to depression, anxiety, stress, sleep etc. A TV experiment with a none coffee drinking fitness guru who had to start drinking 8 cups per day. He ended up having to drink beer on a night to help him sleep, and having to rely on the coffee to make him feel awake due to the lack of sleep - a vicious circle! He also complained about how his body felt really awake, but his mind like mine felt dazed.

following on from my previous posts, it is possible to feel mind numbingly unstimulated in a work environment when you are interacting with other people. Furthermore, if you are surrounded by people who have lots of things to say to each other, and you are isolated in a minority with less opportunity to interact with others (eg. being one of 3 men in an office full of 20+ women etc.), then this can be quite bad because you are really not being stimulated, but you are surrounded by people who are, and continuing working/focus/motivation can be a real effort then also.

I guess, where ever i work, whatever i am doing, when i reach a point when i do feel that i am slipping into a mild coma , i am able to snap out of it and remotivate/sharpen myself from within.

But trading alone has definately highlighted to me the need to be as active as possible outside work hours, in order to get the work life balance right. I think balance is the key!

I've been in contact with traders who do not work from home due to the possible family hassles etc. and therefore have their own office. And having a place to go to trade, as opposed to trading from home, is for some people a good idea.

Perhaps when the profits start rolling in, It might be a good idea to get a few friends to join me. ....a shared office with a few twenty something 5'8"- 6' Swedish looking birds will do the trick!....hmm, what do they call him - Hugh Heffnor :idea:

I thought he was called Lucky B*s*ard

options said:

I thought he was called Lucky B*s*ard

Click to expand...

in a way, you've got to hand it to them though HH, Peter Stringfellow etc. . Even if its not the lifestyle that a lot of men would want, nor may they want to be like them as people, but i think a lot men secretly "take their hat off to them"!

money is certainly a motivation; or more accurately, the ability to make as much by being at home doing something fantastic as trading.

but for me, I find I fidget. its a massive issue with me to stop looking at loads of time-frames just to find a signal about to give, rather than sticking to a reduced number of time-frames.

I therefore look for distractions; reading, surfing, writing pointless posts eek: ) just to take my mind off. (when I used to work, I traded 4-hrs, and was distracted by work.)

thats why I want distractions, but at my desk, so no lawn-mowing, or hoovering.

I agree, you have to make a greater effort to go out and mix socially. I find that I have started to go on more outings with family and friends on weekends. last week was air-show at Cosford, just down the road from me.

EDIT: mind, doesnt slow down, as fast as ever. unfortunately, the speed doesnt correlate to being right!

Over-posting is one way of keeping busy! (look at me, no.16 in the all-time list now, just slip-streamed TWI )I may be a slight hyercondriac! caffeine, mind speed worries etc.!

Sometimes my mind can be slow, but at other times (like now) when ideas etc. are flowing I am firing on all cylinders!

I often do feel like a bit of a zombie, after a long trading day when i re-enter the world of people!

From my own perspective, I've found that working from home is not a good deal for me, at least not the way I was set up. Maybe with a better office situation it would have been different, but I think the lack of direct interaction was problematic. I really could feel my world shrinking.

This isn't a social thing, though certainly that element cannot be ignored. For me I think it was more about being able to float thoughts and hear what others have to say in a collaborative environment. Being directly exposed to other people and the way they think and do things is something that stimulates my own creativity and ideas and forces me to view things in alternate ways.

The environment I currently work in isn't exactly quiet, so others might have a hard time dealing with it. I've got long experience in it, though, so I can tune it out pretty easily when I need to think about trading. Not that I'm personally a day trader. I tend to go more toward position trading. That said, my day-to-day work is primarily short-term market analysis.

This is what happens to people who spend too much time by themselves....

rols said:

This is what happens to people who spend too much time by themselves....

Click to expand...

wow, one gets a wide a#s#?

rols said:

This is what happens to people who spend too much time by themselves....

Click to expand...

does he trade the Vegas Tunnel?

trendie said:

does he trade the Vegas Tunnel?

Click to expand...

nahh, sure its the effect of only trading EURGBP

trendie said:

does he trade the Vegas Tunnel?

Click to expand...

...no, he took some advice about "looking into the transit of Uranus" rather too literally.

probably a natural resource trader or taken the idea of recycling a bit too seriously

rols said:

This is what happens to people who spend too much time by themselves....

Click to expand...

what the **** is that :!:

I moved to California and cut my trading down to 4 hours max per day.

Now that's life balance!

No. That's sensible!

I've decided that for me, the thought of spending my day trading alone, is quite lonely/bleak (even intimidating - a slight risk of financial catastrophe) etc.
However, as with many things in life, the reaiity is not as bad as the anticipation, and i always find stuff on the web to help keep me entertained during the day.