A day in the life
A slightly philosophical post for today.
So, it’s 20:20 and I just picked up £200 or so from the last four races. Was rather hoping there would be some Tennis around as well, but such is life.
Here is a snapshot of my life for the day: –
Up at 06:30, read emails and stuff, picked up data from the day before and did some analysis on it. Made some notes to follow up on later in the afternoon in-between trading. Breakfast, did the school run, did the gym then rushed into the office for a call, then a meeting, then straight onto the Tennis at Queens club. Quick lunch then straight onto the Horses. As the afternoon progresses I dip in and out of the Tennis, which was a pain today thanks to the rain, so buckled down to the racing. In between races it was a case of looking at spreadsheets, speaking to a few people, posting some replies on the forum and solving a few problems. Who says blokes don’t multitask!
At this time of year I will be active on the markets from roughly 13:30 to 21:30 each day, that’s an six hour shift minimum each day behind my desk. But that excludes research, development and various other things. I guess some of this depends on ‘how deep’ you want to go, but from a small start I gradually built and built to much larger numbers and now I’m really keen to squeak every extra percent I can out of my activity. I guess I’m just driven to push the boundaries of what I do, but it creates a problem.
Using up six hours a day of twenty four, creates a few problems. On top of the trading I have to manage Bet Angel, educational advice, blogs, staff, financial markets stuff and a family. That’s a bit of an ask. But I am thankful for a support structure that allows me to do that, just about. I’ve often considered dropping one thing or another but it’s often difficult to make a decisive choice and that’s because of a long term contradiction.
If I just sold something rather than actually did it, I could easily spare time to either talk about it or perhaps do better with the spin offs, but therein lies the difficulty of my situation. Bet Angel was created because I wanted to do things that nobody had done before. Selling it seemed an easy way to fund development (My budget was zero at the outset), the trading came first and the software second. From that people wanted to know more about trading, so on followed various educational elements. But years after I started, it’s still the trading that is the most valuable part of what I do. That surprises me.
At the end of the, very long, day I still get more satisfaction in the achievement, and reward, from trading than anything else. While it would be nice to slip into a more regular routine I have to think about the economics of doing so, but I’ve also always held this mantra that as soon as you stop doing something you fail to become an expert in it. I don’t want to lose that. But, if you want to be called an expert, people need to know that. But keeping up expert status takes a lot of time, energy and effort. Finding time to evangelise about it is limited. Taking time out this evening to do something else would most likely cost an arm and a leg. But failing to do that, probably reduces visibility of what I do, so it’s a bit a catch 22 situation.
So my conclusion ends up being that if you want to spend time with an expert in anything, they are most likely to not have much time to spend. So, through a bit of a ramble; there is your short cut, but no solution, for finding one. Good luck!
Category: General
How much time a week do you take off – ie do you always take Sundays off it is it pretty much 7 days.
Do you plan a specific number of weeks off for holiday each year or do you just play it by ear.
Some weeks its seven days a week, but generally its 5 or 6 full on. I’ve always been of the mind that one day it could stop so I may as well make the most of it while the opportunity is still there. With regard to holidays technology makes it possible to shift location now without too many problems. So I’ll often move around a bit in the summer and spend the morning and evenings with the family while still working on the bulk of markets. But during the busy summer there is generally little room for a proper holiday. So I tend to holiday / take a break in the winter but that involves heading somewhere far away where the you can ensure good weather. I don’t mind that too much, as I love travelling.