Whether you’ve just come back from vacation or you’re planning on going

away soon, there’s one thing that should be on your mind and that’s

“how will I manage to get back into the swing of things when I resume

trading?”

The number of times in the past where we've all ended up having some pretty

terrible days off the back of taking time off isn’t something we are proud

of.

But life and trading are there to teach us – and until we learn these lessons,

they will be relived time and time again. So if you recognize that this has

ever caused even the slightest of issues for you, you must decide on

what to do in order to mitigate risk of it happening again in the future.

The problem is that so many important aspects to trading are just not “sexy”.

If you’re anything like me I’m sure after coming back from vacation you’re champing at the bit to get

trading again. With all the distractions it’s easy to overlook the work that

needs to be done and instead just start trading.

But if you’re going to treat trading like a business – and stay in the game for

the long haul – you’re going to need to pay attention to these sorts of details.

Why do you think businesses do performance reviews for example? Is it because they like to extrapolate all of

the money they’re going make?

Or is it because important information about relative performance

expectations, the state of their business and market conditions can be gleaned which may in turn help them to address weaknesses and plan for

the future?

It’s probably not the sexy side of many businesses but it’s also necessary.

There’s no doubt that everyone is slightly different and so you must look at what you’re particularly susceptible

to. Having said that, there are a few areas of risk that I know I can fall foul of and I’m sure many others will be in

the same boat.

The first area I know that traders will naturally suffer from is diminished

contextual awareness. That is to say what is the current technical condition

of the market, what fundamental events have taken place and what is

the overall mood of the market?

Next I would put my routine and plan following up there. Some are much

better than others at picking up where they left off as far as how they

approach trading, but for me……

I’m at my best when I’m in an unbroken string of days where I can really get into the markets and build

up some momentum to my performances.

Finally I’d say execution sharpness is potentially going to be an issue

depending on how long you’ve been away for. It really can be as simple as

this.

After you understand what the potential issues can be, you need to be careful and diligent as you work your

way back into things.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t trade or you should trade smaller. Although this is an option, if you’re thorough in

the way you go about it there shouldn’t really be any need for this.

What you definitely should be doing though is going back a week or so

before you left and re-running your charts bar by bar until the day you got

back – you can do this fairly quickly and take notes on what you see.

Look at econ releases for those times and check to see if there was any major news and how the market

reacted.

This can help you to get back in synch with the markets and how they are

trading. Then I find it useful just to re-read my trading plan.

Simply reminding myself of what my trading is about helps avoid taking those “off the reservation” trades.

Taking special care in your preparation and logging your trades can help show you how effectively you’re executing

and following your plan.

As far as sharpness in execution goes there are a few things which could

help. This could certainly be an argument for going back to the idea of trading smaller for a short period until you’re confident you are up to speed.

Visualizing a number of different scenarios and how the trade happens

from a mechanical perspective is another useful exercise.

But also, being humble enough to acknowledge the possibility of it being a problem can make a big difference

on its own and help to focus the mind.

It only takes a few bad trades here and there to really impact your bottom

line. But when you also consider that these eminently avoidable errors can be the spark that ignites a number of

other psychological issues, the motivation to avoid them should be

strong.

And in fact the suggestions I’ve made for doing so can be good advice in

general.

Making sure you’re doing things properly and maintaining quality

control are always going to be important although probably more so than ever when you’ve just got back

from vacation.

Make sure when you come back from vacation, you ready yourself for action and you don’t leave your mind on the

beach!

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