Here's what I do everyday.
Weekdays I'll wake up at 4:00am. I'll do some meditation or just sit quietly for a while. I don't turn on the PC or TV and I don't check my mobile. It's quiet time. This is a great time to get my brain clean and in proper mindset for the day. Then for about an hour, I'll read whatever's on my list, usually this is some business or trading book. From 5:45am I'll turn on the PC and watch TV (I got a digital tv tuner card) while planning my day and organizing my schedule. Tokyo TV's Morning Satellite give the best overview of the happenings in the US and world markets. Based on that, I'll start to plan my strategy for the day. Will I enter any new positions? Should I tighten my stops? And so on. From 7:00am, I usually read some more news online or answer emails, do online banking, read my RSS feeds or go outside and do some exercise. Then get some breakfast.From 8:00am, the premarket starts but I'm usually still in the process of getting ready. I've found that if I watch the premarket activity for the entire hour before the open, I'll be exhausted and completely confused about what I should be doing because behavior of the premarket is never really an accurate indication of what the day's trading will be like. So usually, I'll just glance to see what the general mood is and then I'll go and take a shower and get ready. From 8:30am, I'll switch on the tv again and watch Stock Voice which is the live broadcast from the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Tokyo MX. I don't really pay much attention to what the analysts are saying but they do a good summary of any company news that might move the markets as well as a run down of all the calendar events for the day. As it gets closer to the open I watch 2 things, my open positions for any indication that one of them will open dramatically down from the previous day and also my watchlist of potential new opportunities. After the market opens, I'll close or open trades depending on what happens and adjust my stops. Then around 9:15 or so I'm out the door and running to the station to get to work. Since I'm a salaryman, I spend the day working in an office like the masses but usually I'll get home by 7:00pm. I won't go into a detailed breakdown of what I do at my day job because if my boss reads this he'll realize I don't do much at all (just kidding).. After getting home, I'll grab some dinner and do housework etc. Then I'll sit down and review the market day for an hour or two. During this time, I'll review my trades and update my trading journal, review what I did wrong and analyze how I can improve. This is often pretty depressing since it's usually about tallying up my losses :-( Then I'll spend another hour or so scanning stocks. I'll scan about 200-300 stocks daily and flag a dozen or so that are candidates for the next day (I'd go into this process but so far I don't have any friends who are interested in trading so I won't bother). Then if I have some time left I'll read some more or watch a movie. I'm usually in bed by 10:30pm and the process repeats itself a few hours later. On weekends, I'm usually not as strict and let events unfold naturally.This has been my basic regime for the past year for the most days when I can maintain discipline. As you can see, it is not very glamorous and doesn't leave me much time to go out and find stuff to blog about or meet new people. But achieving my goals requires that I focus on what I need to do and becoming skillful at anything requires practice and effort (the effort part is easy as I enjoy what I'm doing). However for me it's not about making a quick buck, it about acquiring the skills and learning the art which as everyone knows requires discipline and dedication. I expect as with any new skill when you get better you can do more in less time which will free you up to do other things. I'm getting there gradually. In the photo above at left is a my scheduler, this is a 24hr calendar where each row represents 30mins. I need a 24hr calendar because I schedule tasks at 4am :-) I mainly use this to log what I have done rather than future events. Colour coded so I know at a glance how much time I've spent on different types of activities. It's my way of tracking my use of time and being conscious of waste. I use google calendar for upcoming schedules. In the middle is a book about the how to get up at 4:00am and change your life. It's in Japanese and was kind of a trendy book for a while. The watch is a Sleeptracker Pro Elite which can track your sleep patterns and which you can program to wake you up at the most opportune times. Good for people who are not morning people. I can wake up at 4:00am without an alarm clock so I don't really need this but the tracking of the sleep pattern which you can sync to a program on your PC is pretty cool.