still keeping a paper log after all these years

Been at this since before you could pull a quote without calling somebody. Figured I'd share how I actually use data day to day, since I see a lot of folks here drowning in indicators. Every morning I write three things on a legal pad. Not in an app, on paper. First, what I think the general tone is, risk on, risk off, or nobody home. Second, the levels I care about on the two or three names I actually follow. Third, and this is the one that saved my hide more times than I can count, what would have to happen for me to be wrong. That third line is the whole exercise. Anybody can find a chart that agrees with them. Took me about fifteen years and one very expensive lesson in the early 2000s to understand that the data doesn't tell you what to do, it tells you whether the story you already believed is still holding up. When I stopped writing that line down I started holding losers, every single time. There's a direct line between the discipline of writing it and the discipline of acting on it. I also only look at volume and price. That's it. I tried the whole zoo over the years — every oscillator that came out, I ran it. What I found is that more inputs mostly gave me more excuses. When six things disagree you'll pick the one that says buy. Two things that disagree just means sit on your hands, and sitting on your hands is a position. One more thing on data quality. Crypto folks especially, know where your numbers come from and which venue. I've watched people make decisions off a thin book and wonder why the fill was nowhere near the screen. That's not the market cheating you, that's just not knowing what you were looking at. Curious what everybody else's morning actually looks like. Not the version you'd post, the real one.