my premarket checklist, trimmed down again

been cutting stuff out of my morning routine for months now. every time I add an indicator I end up ignoring it by week two, so I finally just deleted them. current list, 4:45am to open: - coffee, no charts for the first 15 min. sounds dumb but I used to form an opinion before I was awake and then spend the whole session defending it - read overnight notes I wrote for myself the day before. what did I say I'd watch, and why - scan my own watchlist only. no new names before 8am. if something shows up later it has to earn a spot - for each name: where's the level, where's my invalidation, what size does that invalidation allow. if I can't answer all three in one line I skip it - write the plan down before I do anything else. one line per ticker, in a text file, timestamped - set alerts, close the scanner - 9:00-9:30 I stop looking. this is the part that took me longest to learn things I removed and don't miss: pre-open volume rankings (made me chase), reading the finance twitter feed (made me chase harder), a second timeframe I never actually used for entries. thing I'm still unsure about: whether writing the plan down early makes me too committed to it. a couple times this year I stuck with a line I wrote at 6am when the open clearly said something else. anyone found a middle ground between "have a plan" and "the plan is now my identity"? also curious what other early people do with the last 30 min before open. that's my weakest stretch.